By Express News Service

CHENNAI: With the city facing a severe water crisis, tempers over access to the precious resource are running high. On Thursday night, a 28-year-old woman was stabbed by her neighbour at their apartment in Shankar Nagar over it.

“Mohan, a resident of a two-storey building in Ilango Street in Anakaputhur, went to the ground floor to switch on the motor at 10.25 pm as there was no water in his house. Then, his neighbour Adimoola Ramakrishnan picked up a fight with him,” said a police officer.

“I heard my husband and Ramakrishnan fighting. I went down and asked them to switch on the motor," said Subashini, wife of Mohan.

"However, Ramakrishnan refused and the fight continued. In a fit of rage, he ran up to his house on the second floor and brought out a knife with which he attacked me and pushed down my husband,” she said.

On hearing their screams, the others in the building caught hold of Ramakrishnan and handed him over to the Shankar Nagar police and rushed the couple to the hospital.

The victim said there are around 10 families in the apartment.

“For the last one and a half month there has been an acute water shortage. All of us pay around Rs 3,000 every week to book a water tanker,” she said, adding that most of the residents regularly switch on the motor in the middle of the night to stock water.

The Shankar Nagar police registered a case and arrested Ramakrishnan. Sources said Ramakrishnan works as a driver for Speaker P Dhanapal.