Hunger deaths rampant

Vijay Upadhyay
Agra. The UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav may have made tall claims of holding the district magistrates responsible for hunger related deaths in their districts but in reality, hunger deaths in Uttar Pradesh have not remained constrained to the farmers alone, the evil grip of starvation is now slowly edging towards the unemployed laborers, of which, there are plenty to be found in the industry-bereaved Agra.

Facing the brunt of unemployment during the past couple of years due to the closure of industries in Agra to prevent air and water pollution under directions of the Supreme Court, the industrial workers are a harried lot these days, forced to work at construction sites on petty wages. But the borderline of unemployment and poverty was breached this week when a labourer belonging to the Chief Minister's hometown committed suicide after coping up with an empty stomach for five days.

According to the police sources, Jaikaran, an original resident of Bakewar town in the CM's home-district Etawah had been working in a factory in Nunhai area of Agra for the past four years, living in the Itmad-ud-Daullah area of the town. About eight months back, Jaikaran lost his job due to the closure of the factory that he worked in and since then, he had been trying to get employment in other factories though he failed to get hired and was spending his time by doing menial jobs as a laborer at construction sites.

But even this job could not fill the stomachs of a family of five, including three kids and when Jaikaran could not get hired at any construction site for five days, he fell into a depression watching his kids ask for food from his neighbours. On Tuesday, when even the neighbours refused to give any more food to the kids, Jaikaran could not bear it any longer and when he saw his kids go to sleep with an empty stomach for two days, he decided to end his life.

On Wednesday night, Jaikaran hung himself with his wife's dupatta from the roof of the single room he had rented, where the kids were sleeping just a few feet away.

The body was recovered by the police in the morning and sent for postmortem where his viscera clearly showed that he had died with an empty stomach, unable to withstand the agony of helplessly watching his kids beg for food. Though there is a provision for free of cost cremations for the impoverished class, but no such facility was extended towards the family of Jaikaran and as a result, even the cremation of the deceased Jaikaran was performed with 800 Rs. collected by his neighbours.

If even this pitiful sight was not enough, the local administrative officials too showed complete lack of empathy towards the deceased laborer.

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