Acting swiftly over the incident of an alleged suicide committed by a farmer in Pithoria near Ranchi due to mounting bank loans and damage to crops, Agriculture Secretary Pooja Singhal on Monday formed a four-member committee to find out the actual cause of death.
“We are quite empathetic and bothered about the incident hence a four-member committee comprising Director, Agriculture, Rajiv Kumar, Joint Secretary Rajdeep John lakra and two Deputy Directors, Om Prakash Yadav and Aniruddha Kumar has been formed to look into the matter. It will try to find out the actual cause of the death and establish what exactly the circumstances were, which forced him to take such an extreme step,” said Singhal. The team will be headed by the Director, Agriculture, she added.
Kaleshwar Mahto, 44, the farmer, committed suicide on Saturday by hanging himself from a tree near his field in broad daylight apparently due to the pressure of increasing bank loan taken from Kisan Credit Card and spoilage of crops during the recent months at Semal Beda village under Pithoria police station, 25 kilometers from the State Capital.
Singhal further said that the probe committee has basically been formed to look into the agricultural part of the whole episode and try to find out whether he was actually linked with the KCC or whether he was a beneficiary of any crop insurance policy.
“Since the loan is said to be of 2009, suddenly what happened so that he was forced to take such an extreme step,” said the Agricultural Secretary. Meanwhile, a magisterial inquiry will also be carried out separately, she said.
“We will also try to find out whether there was any payment issue against the milk being supplied by him to the nearby TOP under Pithoria police station,” she said.
Sadar SDO Bhor Singh Yadav along with headquarter DSP also visited the family members to investigate the matter.
Remarkably, local police was clueless to the incident even after the Semal Beda TOP under Pithoria police station is located at a walking distance from Mahto’s house and even family members or anybody in the village did not bother to inform them.
Meanwhile, leader of Opposition and former Chief Minister Hemant Soren visited the Semal Beda village and met family members of the deceased and demanded ex-gratia of Rs 10 lakh for the family along with a government job to the nearest kin of the deceased. Ensuring all help to the family, Soren said that the Government was being run from closed door AC rooms and the law and order situation in the State had been deteriorating day by day.
Jharkhand State Kisan Morcha, on the other hand, has demanded high level inquiry into the matter and also loan waiver for all farmers in the state.
“A three-member team visited the village today and found out that Mahto had a loan of Rs 62 lakh on his head due to which he committed suicide but the local administration has been trying to cover up the whole episode,” stated an official release of the Morcha.
Meanwhile, BJP State Kisan Morcha president Jyotrishwar Singh, after visiting the family members of the deceased, has expressed his condolences and assured that the party was with them.