Mumbai : A 25-year-old man allegedly committed suicide in neighbouring Navi Mumbai on Saturday, with his purported suicide note mentioning his anguish over the Maratha community not getting reservation, police said.
It would be the eighth such suicide in the state in the last two weeks, where the deceased linked their decision to end life to the Maratha quota demand.
Arun Jagannath Bhadale, a resident of the Turbhe area, ended his life by hanging himself from the ceiling of the balcony of his house, Deputy Commissioner of Police Sudhakar Pathare told PTI. “We recovered a suicide note in which he mentions failure to get loan and the Maratha reservation issue. We are verifying if the note was written by him,” he added.
Bhadale, hailing from Bhor in Pune district, worked at the Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC), Pathare said.
According to another police official, his purported suicide note said he had applied to a private finance company for personal loan and deposited Rs 27,000 as demanded, but he was cheated by the company.
“On one hand we are not getting loan and on the other hand government is not giving us Marathas the reservation, there is no option left other than committing suicide,” the note said.
The government should feel shame for failing to understand the community’s sentiments, it added, according to the police official.
Senior police inspector Sanjay Nikam of the APMC police station said the police recovered the suicide note from Bhadale’s bag which he had left at his brother’s house in the Kopar Khairane area on Friday night.
The revived agitation of the Maratha community for reservation in jobs and education has roiled Maharashtra in the last two weeks.
On Friday, a day after Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis reiterated his government’s commitment to granting a quota for the Maratha community, two more persons -– one from Aurangabad and the other from Pune district — committed suicide allegedly over the Maratha quota issue on Friday. Umesh Atmaram Indait, 22, a resident of Aurangabad’s Chikalthana area, allegedly hanged himself in his house in the city’s Choudhary Colony. In the second case, Dattatrey Tukaram Shinde, 34, a resident of Purandar, reportedly threw himself in front of a train at the Daundaj railway station, said police sources. Both had allegedly written suicide notes attributing the cause of the death to the government’s ‘delay’ in granting reservation to the Maratha community.
11 more arrested in Pune violence
At least 11 more people were arrested on Saturday in connection with a violence that broke out in Pune’s Chakan industrial area over the Maratha reservation issue on Saturday. The number of arrests has now gone up to 29 in the Chakan incident which took place on July 30.
Investigation officer in the case Giri Gosawi said, “FIR has been registered against several people. Further investigation is underway.”
Ensure fee reimbursement under Shahu Maharaj scheme: Fadnavis
Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has instructed district Collectors to convene meetings of representatives of those educational institutes which have not reimbursed fees to students under a government scheme, an official release said.Students get a hefty reimbursement of fees under the Rajarshi Shahu Maharaj Free Reimbursement Scheme, which was one of the sops offered to poorer sections of the Maratha community (as well as those in other ‘general category’ communities) by the government when the community leaders first agitated for quota in education and jobs. Hostels for Maratha students, which the government had promised earlier, should be opened in unused government buildings or private buildings (if new buildings are not available readily) by the end of August, the chief minister told the officials, the release said.