One more Booth Level Officer (BLO) died in Kolkata on Thursday, hardly three days after the death of the eighth BLO was reported in West Bengal.
With this, nine deaths have been recorded in the state since the launch of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls exercise on November 4 last year.
According to police, the body of the 47-year-old BLO Ashok Das was found hanging from the ceiling of his bathroom at his Ahalyanagar residence in the Mukundapur area under Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) ward number 19.
His body has been sent to a morgue for postmortem. Ashok was a school teacher by profession.
Local BJP leadership in Jadavpur organisational unit of the party alleged that Ashok died because the Trinamool Congress men used to threaten him and forced him to meet their demands in connection with the deletions and inclusion of voters in the electoral rolls.
He was psychologically upset because of the threat unleashed by the Trinamool goons in the area and hanged himself to death, the saffron camp alleged.
Rubbishing the allegations, Trinamool Congress leadership said, “BJP is intentionally making such false and baseless charges against us involving the death. It’s a well-planned conspiracy of the BJP against us. He died by suicide because he could not bear the work pressure and tremendous anxiety triggered by the unplanned SIR exercise.”
On Saturday, the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wrote to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar expressing serious concern over deaths of common citizens and BLOs because of the SIR-related work pressure and anxieties in the state.
On Saturday, Hamimul islam, a BLO of East Alaipur polling booth under Khoribona gram panchayat committed suicide. His body was found hanging from the ceiling inside the classroom of his school on Saturday evening.
“Hamimul was under tremendous psychological pressure because of the work pressure and tension generated by the electoral roll revision duties. Besides his daily workload as a headmaster in the school, he could not bear the rigorous SIR jobs for the past couple of months and as a result, he died by suicide,” alleged Formanul Islam, elder brother of the deceased.
His body has been sent to the morgue for postmortem, police said.
On January 7, BLO Samprita Chowdhury Sanyal’s death was recorded in Englishbazar in Malda district. She was an ICDS worker.
Family members of all nine deceased BLOs alleged that all of them succumbed to unbearable work pressure, stress and strains caused by the SIR exercise that kick-started in the state on and from 4 November.
The first death of a BLO was reported in East Bardhaman district in the state during the first week of November. After 10 days, the second case happened in Jalpaiguri district in north Bengal when a woman BLO died by suicide.
On 21 November, third BLO died also by suicide in Nadia district. The fourth death was reported in Murshidabad district when a BLO died of cardiac arrest.
On 28 December, the fifth one died by suicide in Bankura district. The sixth case of BLO deaths came from Cooch Behar last Saturday. Today’s death intensified the ongoing spat between the ruling Trinamool Congress and opposition BJP in the state.
(Assistance for those having suicidal thoughts is available on health helpline 104 and Sneha’s suicide prevention helpline 044-24640050)
