A 28-year-old farmer allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree in Kokatnur village under Aigali Police Station limits of Athani taluk on Wednesday.
It is said that Annappa Balappa Gowda could not cope up and sustain the losses from farming, pressure of repayment of existing loans to banks and private money lenders and delay in payment by a sugar factory.
The Tahsildar and police officials from Athani have rushed to the spot. where the body of Annappa Balappa Gowda was found hanging to a neem tree in is agriculture field. Annappa Gowda, as usual, left home in the morning and hanged himself from a neem tree in an agriculture field, police officials who were conducting panchanama at the time of filing this report told THE HINDU .
The deceased farmer was the eldest among four sons of Baleppa Gowda, whose family owned four acres of agricultural non-irrigable land. The total loan stood at about Rs.2.50-Rs.3 lakh, including Rs.1.50 lakh from KVG Bank, Rs.50,000 from a cooperative society, besides hand loans from relatives and friends. Recently, he had spent nearly Rs.80,000 on borewells, which however, did not yield water and the money went down the drain.
Being the eldest son, Annappa explored other ways to earn money and entered into a contract with his paternal uncle to cultivate sugarcane in the latter’s land on 50:50 sharing basis. The sugarcane yield was supplied to a private factory on the outskirts of the village during the 2014-15 crushing season. The factory had credited Rs.95,000 to his uncle’s account and another Rs.2.65 lakh was due to be paid, local farmers’ leader Mahadev Madiwal and relatives of the deceased said.
A police official felt that Gowda might have been deeply frustrated after his father abused him for raising loans, putting the entire family under pressure.
This is the second suicide since grower Gurunath Mallappa Chapgaon of Badal Ankalgi of Belagavi taluk committed suicide on June 8 this year. Three other farmers attempted suicide but survived after they were given timely medical treatment.
