Bangiriposhi: A 45-year-old farmer of Kadambdiha village under this block in Mayurbhanj district committed suicide by hanging reportedly over debt burden and power dues Monday, three days after a farmer of Nakhura village under the same block ended his life for similar reasons.
Villagers found Lakshman Majhi’s body hanging from a banyan tree on his farmland about 600 metres from his house and informed his family members as well as Bangiriposhi police. A pall of gloom descended on the village following the incident.
Police sent the body for post-mortem and started an investigation. Block development officer (BDO)-cum-tehsildar (in-charge) Kukumina Das directed additional tehsildar Prabhat Kumar Mohapatra to conduct a probe into the incident. Mohapatra refused to speak on the issue stating that investigation is underway. Sources said Majhi had borrowed from various sources including Bank of India’s Bangiriposhi branch to cultivate paddy and groundnut.
He had installed a borewell to irrigate his farmland but it failed to serve the purpose while his power dues went on increasing, adding to his debt burden. Majhi was expecting to tide over the difficulty from his harvest of groundnut but was left shattered after the saplings wilted due to scanty rainfall.
This pushed him into distress as he constantly pondered over repaying his loan and often talked about it to his family members, his younger brother Bajun Majhi said.
These were the circumstances that drove Majhi to take the extreme step, his family claimed.
The incident occurred when the family members were asleep after dinner. He woke up at midnight and cycled to his farmland where he hanged himself from the tree. Earlier, a farmer Lakhia Singh (55) of Nakhura village under this block had committed suicide reportedly due to debt burden, January 22.