Bhubaneswar, Jan. 23: Police today rescued a 30-year-old woman from a lodge in Puri with her throat slit under mysterious conditions.

The cops rushed the woman to Puri district headquarters hospital. “We have started an investigation into the incident and are waiting for the statement of the girl,” said deputy superintendent of police (city) Sashibhusan Satpathy.

A doctor attending to her said her condition was stable.

The police said the woman, a native of Dhusuri village of Bhadrak, was supposed to marry today at a temple in Puri. Yesterday, she checked in a lodge near the beach.

The woman had checked in the lodge with her brother-in-law, identified as Parshuram Sahoo, his friend Digambar Pothal and another person, who is yet to be identified. Two rooms were booked — one for the woman and another for the three.

“This morning, when the three persons were just about to check out, the lodge employees heard the screams of the woman from her room. When the staff members rushed to the room, they found her lying on the room’s floor with her throat slit,” said a police officer.

The lodge staff members managed to get hold of both Sahoo and Pothal while they were trying to escape. However, the third person fledthe spot. The cops suspect that the third person was supposed to marry the woman today.

The police suspect that the incident might have taken place after the woman had come to know that his would-be husband was an non-matric though she, herself, holds a Plus Two degree in arts.

“Her brother-in-law had brought her to Puri for the marriage. We suspect that he might have pressurised her to marry the third person, who was with them. This might have provoked the woman to slit her own throat,” said a police official.

The police further said the woman left her house since December 21 last after her family members had pressurised her to get married. Since then she had been staying at her friend’s home in Bhadrak. But later, Parshuram intervened in the matter and managed to convince the girl to marry. Sahoo had brought her to Puri to marry the person, who escaped from the lodge.