A 48-year-old woman died and her 50-year-old husband and 19-year-old son are battling for life after they consumed celphos at their house in Vijay Nagar in Zirakpur’s Dhakoli area on Saturday.

According to police sources, the family was stressed due to increasing debt and was being hounded by money lenders through repeated phone calls.

After seeing his mother’s condition deteriorating after consuming the poison, her son himself called one of the relatives, who rushed to their house and took them to the local community health centre. But doctors referred them to the civil hospital in Mohali’s Phase 6, where the woman was declared dead, and her son and husband were referred to PGIMER, Chandigarh.

A relative told the police that the couple had a heated argument on Saturday, after which the trio decided to end their lives by consuming celphos.

Police were yet to register a case till the filing of the report.

On March 19, a 25-year-old woman and her 26-year-old male friend had died after consuming celphos at a guest house in Morni.

The woman, who was married and missing from her Ambala home since March 18, was found dead in the guest house the next night, while her male friend died later at PGIMER, Chandigarh, on March 20.