An Indian teenager, Khusboo Kumari, has committed suicide because her parents refused to build a toilet in the house.

Police said on Saturday that it seemed the 17-year-old had repeatedly asked her parents to build a toilet in the house as she was embarrassed to go out to the fields to defecate, but they ignored her.

“Kumari was found hanging Friday inside her home on the outskirts of Dumka town in the eastern state of Jharkhand,’’ superintendent of police Vipul Shukla, was quoted as saying.

Her parents reportedly told her that they were saving money for her marriage and could not spend it on a toilet.

The officer said the initial investigation suggested Kumari committed suicide but that all possibilities were being looked into.

According to the 2011 census, Jharkhand is one of India’s poorest states, lagging in many development indicators and about 78 per cent of households there do not have toilets.

In India, women have the added problem of lack of security if they have to use open fields away from their homes at odd hours.

“The girl’s parents did not realise how important it was for her to have a toilet at home,’’ it further said.