Tension prevails at Pulpally after farmer’s death

Tension prevailed at Pulpally on Wednesday after a group of people under the aegis of the Janakeeya Samara Samithi took out a protest march to the Pulpally Primary Service Cooperative Bank with the body of a farmer who had allegedly committed suicide on Tuesday.

Tension prevailed at Pulpally on Wednesday after a group of people under the aegis of the Janakeeya Samara Samithi took out a protest march to the Pulpally Primary Service Cooperative Bank with the body of a farmer who had allegedly committed suicide on Tuesday.

Rajendran Nair, 55, of Kizhakke Ilayidathu, at Chempakamoola under the Pulpally police station limits, a complainant in the Pulpally Cooperative Bank loan fraud case was found dead in a plantation near his house.

Relatives of the deceased said that he had borrowed a loan of nearly ₹73,000 from the bank in 2017 by mortgaging his 70 cents of land, but, as per the bank records, the amount borrowed was ₹25 lakh. Moreover, he had arrears to the tune of nearly ₹40 lakh, including interest in the bank.

Many a loanee, including the farmer, had complained that the former governing council had swindled off the rest of the money and they staged a protest in front of the bank demanding a vigilance probe in to the issue.

His relatives alleged that the huge debt forced Rajendran Nair to take the extreme step.

The protesters took out the march with the body of the farmer after the autopsy was done at the Government Medical College hospital at Mananthavady around 11 a.m.

The protesters raised demands such as providing emergency financial assistance of ₹25 lakh to the kin of the farmer, a job for the son of the deceased in the bank, writing off the loan, and adopting legal actions against the accused who had instigated his death.