Unable to cope with financial problems triggered by the COVID-19 crisis, a 30-year-old tribal woman allegedly committed suicide by jumping into the Munneru river along with her two children here on Wednesday.
The deceased were identified as D Vanitha, 30, Chaitanya, 9 and Rohitha, 7, residents of Revathi Centre locality in the town.
Sources said that Vanitha, wife of D Ravi, an autorickshaw driver, took the extreme step along with her two children due to mounting debts in the midst of the pandemic.
She had been staying at her parents’ house with her son and daughter at UPH Colony since her husband contracted COVID-19 last month, sources added.
The crisis triggered by the pandemic pushed her poor family into a debt trap, aggravating their financial problems.
Sources close to the family of the deceased suspect that financial stress owing to the rising debt burden coupled with loss of livelihood could have driven her to the extreme step.
The bodies of the trio were retrieved from the river by locals and shifted to the mortuary by a team of volunteers led by social worker Annam Srinivas Rao.
The Khammam three-town police registered a case.
(Suicide prevention helpline, Roshni: 040-66202000}
