BHOPAL: Three more farmers have committed suicide allegedly under the burden of debt over the last 24 hours in Madhya Pradesh, taking the toll in the last ten days to 15.
A farmer identified as Jeevan Singh Meena (35) allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself from a mango tree in Sherukhedi village in Vidisha district (125 km from Bhopal) on Sunday late night.
While the farmer’s family claimed he committed suicide owing to mounting debt burden and small size of land holding, his kin were unable to tell the actual sum of outstanding dues.
According to SP Vidisha Dharmendra Chaudhary, primary investigations have revealed that the farmer had no outstanding dues and had already repaid the Kisan Credit Card loan. It was due to family reasons, including his wife going to parents place and his six brother-in-laws demanding share in land, which could have triggered the extreme step by Meena.
The tehsildar Santosh Bitoliya also said that there was nothing to even suggest that the farmer committed suicide due to outstanding loan. “We’re getting the matter probed and the actual reason behind his death will be ascertained soon,” he said.
In a tragic turn of events, after the autopsy of the body, the farmer’s kin had to carry his body on a loading auto-rickshaw as there was no vehicle from the government hospital to his village.
Meanwhile, a 55-year-old farmer Bansi Lal Meena also hanged himself in Sehore district, which is the home district of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. It was the third farmer suicide in Sehore district in the last 10 days.
The deceased farmer’s son Manoj Meena alleged that his father was depressed over inability to repay heavy loan taken from various sources. The farmer owned nine acre of land and had taken Rs 3 lakh loan from bank, besides Rs 5 lakh loan from money lenders, his kin alleged.
The police, however, said it was not yet clear whether the farmer committed suicide due to burden of debt or not.
On Sunday, another farmer, 60-year-old Pyarelal, had allegedly committed suicide in Pipliyawas village of Neemuch district. His son Dev Karan had alleged that the burden of repaying Rs 2.5 lakh loan had prompted his father to end his life. The Neemuch police have lodged the matter under Section 174 of CrPc and investigations are underway.
With these, 15 farmers have allegedly committed suicide in Madhya Pradesh over the last 10 days over varied reasons, including pressure of repaying loans.
Youth detained for objectionable post on Mandsaur farmer killings
A 20-year-old youth was detained for a few hours in Vidisha district on Sunday for sharing objectionable post on WhatsApp. The post shared by the Class XI dropout youth in Ganj Basoda town of Vidisha pertained to the June 6 killing of five farmers in police firing in Mandsaur district.
The post mentioned about taking 50 lives in retaliation to the deaths of five farmers in Mandsaur. The Vidisha police received information about the post from the state police cyber cell in Bhopal.
“We subsequently detained the youth for questioning for a few hours. He told the police that he had only shared the post in one WhatsApp group. The post was created by someone else and not the youth who was questioned. After recording his statements, we allowed the youngster to go home on Sunday itself,” said SP Vidisha district Dharmendra Chaudhary.
The police are now trying to ascertain who created the post.