The Kottayam town on Tuesday witnessed some tense moments following attempts by a group of people, carrying the bodies of twin brothers who had committed suicide the other day, to stage a protest in front of a cooperative bank office.
The episode began to unfold in the afternoon when workers of the United Democratic Front and relatives of the deceased attempted to take the dead bodies to the Kottayam Urban Cooperative Bank (KUCB) office at Manippuzha after the post-mortem examination at the Government Medical College Hospital, Kottayam.
The protesters were led by district panchayat member P.K. Vysakh, Pallom block panchayat member Siby John and Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee secretary Nattakom Suresh.
As the protesters entered the four-lane road at Manippuzha, a police team led by Deputy Superintendent J. Santosh Kumar intercepted them. They then staged a blockade on MC Road, leading to traffic disruptions along the busy stretch.
Talks held
As the issue threatened to snowball into a major conflict, Kottayam tahsildar Littimol Thomas reached the spot and held discussions with the leaders. The stand-off ended after the tahsildar promised to assuage the concerns of the victims’ relatives. The bodies were later taken to a masjid at Thazhathangadi for burial.
The twin brothers, Nizar Khan and Nazir Khan, were found dead at their house on Monday. Preliminary investigations attributed the suicides to financial stress experienced by the duo, who had been left jobless following COVID-19. The twins had availed themselves of a loan of ₹13 lakh from the KUCB’s Manipuzha branch and defaulted on its repayment for two years.