Saddled with crippling debts, a farmer couple allegedly committed suicide at Gollenapadu village in Wyra mandal on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday.
The police identified the deceased as K. Lakshminarayana, 62, and his wife Tarakamma, 55.
The couple allegedly consumed pesticide at their house late on Thursday night.
Just before resorting to the drastic step, they reportedly had a heated argument over the means to deal with the mounting debts incurred by successive crop failures.
Lakshminarayana died while undergoing treatment shortly after Thursday midnight. Tarakamma succumbed to the lethal effect of the pesticide at a hospital in Wyra in the small hours of Friday.
Sources said that Lakshminarayana took to cotton cultivation by borrowing loans from a bank and a private moneylender after retiring as a driver in the RTC a couple of years ago.
The couple found themselves in a spiral of debt following repeated crop failures and unsuccessful attempts to deepen an open well and dig a new borewell in their agricultural land last year.
Sources said the couple’s son is working as a soldier in the Indian Army unit in Assam.
The Wyra police registered a case and are investigating.
