An 18-year-old woman died hours after she was stabbed by an alleged stalker in a shopping plaza in Greater Noida on Friday morning, reported the Hindustan Times. The woman was a salesgirl at a retail store. The 25-year-old man who stabbed her tried to stab himself too when the police arrived at the scene of the crime.

The accused approached the woman at the shop around 11.30 am and allegedly asked her to talk to him. The two then went towards the first floor of the plaza, Kasna police station house officer Shalendra Pratap Singh said. Closed-circuit television footage showed the woman trying to free her hand from the grasp of the accused, but he attacked her with a knife multiple times, he said.

“We tried to stop him but he kept on threatening everybody with the knife,” Surendra Kumar, who works at a shop in the plaza, told the Hindustan Times. “Meanwhile, the police were informed. In the next five to 10 minutes, two cops arrived at the plaza. After seeing the cops, the accused went back to the same spot where the girl was lying and stabbed himself.”

The police took both the woman and the accused to a nearby hospital. The woman succumbed to her injuries. Police have filed a murder case.

The woman’s family said the man had allegedly been stalking her for a few months and that they had informed his parents about his behaviour. The family had declined his proposal to marry the girl because they were from different castes, The Times of India reported.