Article from: AAP
February 06, 2008 08:30am

AN Australian teenager who died after being shot by a stalker in India had planned to leave the country to escape the man, a friend has revealed.

Lila Salter was shot three times at her home at Vrindavan, near Agra, on Saturday by Saurav Singh, the nephew of a former state minister. Singh then killed himself.

Lila died on Monday night after being returned from hospital in New Delhi to the holy town of Vrindavan, where she was placed on life support.

She will be cremated there in a traditional riverside ceremony.

Lila, a Hare Krishna devotee who was born in the northern NSW town of Murwillumbah but who had lived with her family in India for several years, had known Singh for some years.

Janelle O'Connor, who worked in the family's Gold Coast restaurant, said Lila had been due to return to Australia to escape from Singh's unwanted attentions.

"Being the gentle nature that Lila had, she was trying to brush him off nicely, and he just kept stalking her," Ms O'Connor told ABC radio.

"She was attacked first, and then her mother was called, and they had arranged for her to get on the next flight out of India, and then he came back before she could get on the flight."

Doctors had warned Lila's family that her injuries following the shooting were so severe she was likely to be brain dead.