BENGALURU: Monday’s suicide attempt by 44-year-old assistant librarian Revanna Kumar came as a shocker to everyone, including his family.
Kumar entered the Vidhana Soudha around 11.30 AM and went to meet some officials. Two hours later, he reached the third floor and tried to close the door from inside.
Ashok, a police constable in Vidhana Soudha security, found Kumar collapsed in the toilet. Initially thinking he was killed, Ashok then noticed Kumar’s left hand shaking after which they rushed him to hospital.
Kumar however, said that this was the only step available for him to highlight the plight of around 6,000 people, employed as librarians on a contract basis.
In a suicide note found on his body, Kumar laid the blame for his extreme step at the doors of the Government. “I am sacrificing my life for the sake of 6,000 people…. The government did not take any decision of appointing us as permanent employees. We are not even getting minimum wage and even approaching the President and the Governor did not help. Our demands are 20 years old,” Kumar, himself a contract employee at Anur Gram Panchayat, said in the note.
Kumar also mentioned that his funeral could be held in a simple manner without rituals and that Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy had to attend it. “My family should not cry after my death..,” he went on to say.
The police took a statement from his elder son Gagan Kumar who told them that his father left home alone in the early hours on Monday and did not inform his family about his visit to Bengaluru.
Kumar is married to Suneetha Kumari, a housewife and the couple have two sons studying in a private college in their hometown. The shocked family reached the hospital around 7 PM on Monday.