Crop failure drives farmer to suicide in Rajasthan

A 45-year-old farmer committed suicide by hanging himself at his farm in Rajasthan’s Rajsamand district after his crop was damaged due to the cold wave failed, police said on Monday.

The deceased farmer has been identified as Lehrulal Keer, who officials said was depressed over the damage to his brinjal crop.

“As per the report filed by the family members of the deceased, his wife found him hanging in the farms around 11am, following which neighbours rushed him to a government hospital where doctors declared him brought dead. The deceased was tending to his brinjal crop on land measuring about four bighas,” the circle officer (CO) of Rajsamand police, Durg Singh Rajpurohit said.

After post-mortem the body was handed over to the family members, said Rajpurohit.

Bherulal Keer, nephew of Lehrulal said, “My aunt went to our agriculture farm on Sunday morning and found that most of the crop had been damaged by cold wave. She saw that uncle had hanged himself from the tree. She started screaming for help after which farmers from nearby agriculture farms rushed there and took him to the hospital.”

Bherulal added that his uncle had a loan of Rs 1.50 lakhs on his head which drove him to take the extreme step. “My uncle had taken loan from a local money lender at 2 percent interest per month. Since his land was disputed he had not taken loan from any bank,” he said.

First Published: Jan 01, 2019 13:47 IST