Bihar: Debt-ridden Old Couple and a Medical Shop Owner Die by Suicide

Patna: Amid reports of pre-wedding celebrations in the wealthiest Ambani family that cost more than Rs 1000 crore, an old debt-ridden couple and a medicine shop owner have allegedly died by suicide in Bihar in the last 24 hours. They were pressured to pay back the money from the moneylenders and banks.

According to police, Sivan Das, 60, and his wife Bhukhli Devi,55, a poor couple, died by suicide by hanging themselves from a banyan tree in Muzaffarpur district late Sunday night.

"The old couple was passing through a financial crunch and was under mental stress to pay back the debt that they had taken. Due to increasing harassment by local moneylender, the couple left their home a few days ago and hid somewhere. But they died by suicide to get rid of it," Mahesh Prasad, a villager, said.

An elected ward member of the village body told NewsClick on condition of anonymity that an old couple ended their life after being humiliated, abused and threatened by a moneylender.

"It seems they had no other option because there was no one to help them."

Police officials of the local police station said that an enquiry into the case started from all angles, and their body was sent for postmortem.

Suicide by small farmers like Das is something uncommon in impoverished Bihar.

In another case, Vikram Kumar, 42, a medicine shop owner who was unable to repay the bank loan, hanged himself in Purnea on Sunday.

Vikram was reportedly depressed as his medicine shop business, the only source of his livelihood, was not doing well.

"My younger brother Vikram was troubled and tense because his business was not making any profit even after he took a bank loan. He was disturbed after the bank's officials repeatedly pressured him to repay the loan. But he was not in a position to repay and lastly ended his life," Parvan Kumar, elder brother of Vikram, said.

Local Khajanchi police station officer in charge, Sashi Kumar Bhagat, said that prima facie, it appears that Vikram has committed suicide due to repeated harassment by the bank to repay the loan.

"We have recovered a suicide note in which Vikram had mentioned that he decided to end his life as he was unable to repay a bank loan of which the total amount increased, and he was facing sleepless nights. Police are probing into the case".

According to the socio-economic data of the Bihar caste survey report that was released in November 2023, poverty is rampant in Bihar, with 34.13% of all families in the state living in poverty. However, the number of low-income families is highest in SCs and STs, followed by OBCs and EBCs.

They belong to one-third of Bihar's low-income families, who are living in abject poverty, with a monthly income of Rs 6,000.