Daijiworld Media Network - Mandya (SP)

Mandya, Sep 23: Mandya district, where maximum farmer suicides have happened, witnessed four deaths on Saturday September 22. A farmer ended his own life along with his wife and two children at Sunkathonnur in Pandavapura taluk in the district reportedly overwhelmed by the burden of huge loan.

Nandeesh (37), a farmer from the said village, his wife, Komala (33), son, Manoj (13), and daughter, Chandana (15) were the ones who chose to end their lives. All of them consumed poison mixed with non-vegetarian food on Friday night.

Nandeesh , Komala and Chandana

All the four bodies were found from the courtyard of the farmhouse where the unfortunate family members consumed poison. The locals felt that the family members would have come out of the farm house at night, being unable to bear agonizing stomach pain caused by poison.

The bodies were handed over to the legal heirs after conducting post-mortem at the mortuary of the government hospital at Pandavapura. Before taking the bodies away, the people staged a protest demanding disbursal of the compensation. They were consoled by the deputy commissioner, and based on his promise, they relented.

It is learnt that Nandeesh had inherited two acres of land from his father in which he was conducting sericulture and sugarcane cultivation. He had raised various loans totalling to about Rs 15 lac and had faced repeated failure of crops and other problems. Even after he sold one acre of land, he was able to clear only a part of the debt raised from private moneylenders, it is said.

In a death note left behind, Nandeesh reportedly said that the agricultural occupation he depended on was to blame for the death of him and his family members and nothing else. In the death note addressed to the chief minister, he said he was not dying as a coward but had taken this tough decision as he could not clear his liabilities in spite of his best efforts. In the letter, he referred about his meeting the chief minister in Janata Darshan programme and expressed the desire that the bodies should be handed over to the corporation and no one else should dispose them off.

It is learnt that after receiving written petition from Nandeesh two weeks ago during the Janata Darshan programme about the conditions which might compel him to undertake mass suicide, the chief minister had contacted district administration and Pandavapura taluk administration about the case. He also had discussed the matter with district in-charge minister, C S Puttaraju.

District in-charge minister, C S Puttaraju, who visited the hospital at Pandavapura and paid last respects to the deceased, lamented about the extreme step taken by the farmer, and promised to sanction suitable compensation to the family in consultation with the chief minister. At the same time, minister of horticulture, M C Managuli, speaking at Davanagere, said that he does not trust the death note and that suitable compensation would be disbursed after the verification of first information report, post-mortem report and other documents.

Reacting to the incident, chief minister, H D Kumaraswamy, said that he is extremely pained at the suicide by a farmer family. He said that the government has already issued orders waiving loans of farmers with cooperative and nationalized banks, and requested farmers to have patience.