A 35-year-old farmer committed suicide after the power company attached his flour mill and motorcycle over non-payment of electricity bills in Madhya Pradesh’s Chhattarpur district, police said.
In a note that the farmer, Munendra Rajput, left behind, he requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to hand over his body to the government to “sell every part of my body and repay dues”.
Munendra Rajput allegedly committed suicide at Matguvan village, some 17 km from the district headquarters, on Wednesday afternoon, an official said.
“When there are scams by big politicians and businessmen, government employees don’t take any action. If they take a loan, they get enough time to repay or the loan is waived. But if a poor person takes even a small amount of loan, the government would never ask him as to why he was not able to repay the loan. Instead, he is insulted in public,” the farmer wrote.
The deceased left behind a suicide note, in which he has stated that the government should sell his body parts to recover the pending electricity dues, the victim’s brother Lokendra Rajput said, according to reports.
The police have confirmed the recovery of the suicide note.
“My brother had pleaded to the government officials to give him some time to pay his dues, as even after the coronavirus-induced lockdown was lifted, his business had not picked up after sustaining losses,” Lokendra said.
Even the victim’s Kharif crop had failed and to make up the loss, he ran the flour mill, he claimed.
Lokendra further alleged that his brother could not run his mill for better part of the year, but the power distribution company had handed him a yearly average bill instead of reading his electricity meter to work out the actual power consumption.
“A case has been registered in connection with the suicide and investigations are underway,” area police inspector Kamaljeet Singh said.
Meanwhile, a 57-year-old farmer died of heart attack while protesting the Centre’s new farm laws at the Ghazipur border on Friday.
Mohar Singh, a resident of Bhagwanpur Nangal village in Baghpat district was rushed to a nearby hospital where the doctors declared him brought dead, an official said.
Indirapuram DSP Anshu Jain told PTI that as per medical information, the farmer died due to a heart attack.
Commenting on the incident, the state president of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU), Rajbir Singh, said all the farmers who died during the protest must be declared as a martyr.
The body was wrapped in a BKU flag. BKU leader Rakesh Tikait paid homage to the deceased.
