The 17-year-old son of a Border Security Force (BSF) personnel allegedly committed suicide on Tuesday when he failed to get cash to visit a local fair in Bulandshahr district, Uttar Pradesh.
The deceased has been identified as Sumeet Chawdhary, a Class-XII student of Jaypee Vidhya Mandir school in Delhi Gate area, Anoopshahr. His father Premveer is in the BSF and is currently posted at the China border.
‘Depressed’
“Kartik mela is going on in the area. On Friday, Sumeet asked his mother to give him money to visit the fair, but she couldn’t get the cash. He queued up outside an SBI Bank branch over the weekend to exchange old notes, but also failed,” Sumeet’s uncle Gyanveer Chawdhary told The Hindu.
“Following this, Sumeet went into depression. On Monday his mother got some cash and told Sumeet to take his two older sisters to the fair but he refused on the pretext that he had to study,” said Mr. Gyanveer.
“His family left home at 6.30 pm on Monday and returned within one-and-a-half-hour. They found the main gate locked from the inside. They knocked several times. When they got no response, the family sought help of the neighbours, who broke the gate and found Sumeet’s hanging body,” Mr. Gyanveer said.
“We have registered a police complaint. Some of Sumeet’s friends had commented that he was a son of an armyman but still couldn’t get old notes exchanged. This comment, it appears, pinched him,” Sumeet’s uncle said.
The police have registered an FIR, while the Bulandshahr district administration has ordered a separate probe.
(The writer is a freelance journalist)