On Friday, tension gripped Chikkaballapur town after the news of death of a farmer who attempted suicide in front of district commissioner office spread.
Denied ownership rights to his farm land by the revenue officers, Anand Kumar attempted suicide by consuming poison in front of the district commissioner’s office on Wednesday and died in Victoria hospital in Bengaluru on Friday morning, reported The Times of India.
The 35-year-old farmer had worked on the land for over two decades. Revenue officials approached him in March claiming that he had been farming on the land illegally as the land belonged to the gram panchayat and also penalized him.
Many shops, hotels and cinema halls in Chikkaballapur were closed and agitators blocked roads at Sidlaghatta Circle and other places, disrupting traffic.
His friends who were there at the hospital in Bengaluru held Chikkaballapur deputy commissioner and tahsildar responsible for the death stating that the deceased farmer killed himself because DC did not intervene, reported TOI.
A relative said Anand had been cornered and he wrote to the district administration saying that he would end his life. “This land was the livelihood for his wife and three children,” Govindappa, a farmer, said.
The government sanctioned Rs 5 lakh compensation to Anand's family and Rs 2,000 monthly pension to his wife. The government also asked the local administration to identify 2 acres to be given to the family.
Anand had been farming 3.12 acres of gokunte land (a water body for animals) for two decades and was growing cashew. He had petitioned revenue officers who rejected his plea, following which he petitioned the tahsildar.
Revenue officials in March sent a notice to him asking him to vacate the land as it belonged to the gram panchayat and that the cashew crop grown would be auctioned.