Keonjhar: Unable to repay his installments on his vehicle loan due to dwindling business, a 31-year-old truck owner allegedly committed suicide by jumping on a railway track near Kadagada village in Keonjhar district Wednesday morning. The deceased was identified as Lokanath Deo at Gobardhan village under Sadar block in Keonjhar district. The incident has spread shockwaves and widespread concerns among the locals and truck owners. Police reached the spot and launched an investigation.
Sources said that Deo had taken a loan from a private finance firm to purchase two Hyva heavy commercial trucks and supported his family as well as repaid his loan installments with the income generated from the business. However, due to a prolonged slump in the local transport sector and a lack of freight opportunities, he was unable to pay the equated monthly installments (EMIs) of loan. As a result, one of his trucks was reportedly seized by the financing company. This pushed him into depression. The mental and financial stress is believed to have led him to take the extreme step. His mutilated body was found on the railway tracks near Kadarada village, It is suspected that he might jumped on the railway track and been run over by a train. Residents spotted the mutilated body lying on the railway track and informed the police. Railway and local police reached the spot, recovered the body, and sent it for post-mortem.
Investigators are probing the incident, with preliminary inquiries pointing toward suicide, though accidental death has not been ruled out. A government railway police (GRP) officer, Aslam Khan said that the actual reason behind Deo’s death could be ascertained after the investigation gets completed. Reacting to the incident, Dilip Kumar Sahu of Keonjhar Nagarika Manch blamed the worsening truck-loading crisis in the district. He urged the Chief Minister to take immediate note of the plight of truck owners. “Youth are taking private loans to buy vehicles and ending their lives. The state government should create a dedicated fund like corpus fund for truck owners and constitute a task force to investigate such cases and ensure justice,” he said.
