Debts claim 3 lives; two girl children orphaned

Alladurg (Medak): Following quarrel between a man and his wife due to financial problems, three members of a farmer’s family lost their lives on Sankranthi under tragic circumstances, leaving two small girl children orphaned.

Talari Subhash (38) was not a farmer by choice. He had completed his Diploma in Elementary Education from Zaheerabad, after completing BA and Teacher Training Course. He was married to Anushamma (32) and they were residents of Rampur village in Alladurg mandal of Medak district. The couple were blessed with three beautiful children namely Gyaneshwar (13), Sreeja (6) and
Sreevani (4).

A Dalit aspiring to be a teacher in a government school, Subhash remained unemployed. He took to agriculture for his livelihood. He and his younger brother (a mason in Hyderabad) shared the 30 guntas of land they had inherited from their father.

Successive years of drought saw groundwater levels in Alladurg plummet to precarious levels. Even during the kharif of 2016, he was barely able to sell his paddy produce for Rs 12,000. He had sown just paddy in his land and in another two acres of land he had leased.

Anushamma had to be operated twice last year for appendicitis at Archana hospital in Madinaguda because the doctors there allegedly made a blunder while operating her for the first time.

The total expenditure incurred was around Rs 60,000. Subhash had borrowed that money from people he knew. Subhash also got his younger brother married, bearing all the marriage expenditure (Rs 36,000), which was again borrowed.

The situation was so dire that Subhash had to take a gold loan from the DCCB bank in Shankarampet A mandal, after depositing his wife’s wedding chain (pusthela taadu), weighing two tolas, in the bank. Due to acute poverty, he had also surrendered his insurance policies.

According to Venkatram Reddy, the village sarpanch, Subhash had taken loans from several known people in the village to the tune of Rs 4 lakh. He said that he himself had lent Subhash Rs 50,000. Subhash constructed two rooms for himself and his brother a few years ago, for which he had taken private loans.

The debt burden on Subhash’s head did take a toll on his personal life. The couple used to quarrel at times. Subhash’s son, Gnyaneshwar, studying in TSWREIS Hathnoora, had just come home for the Sankranthi festival.

Unfortunately the couple quarrelled on that day too because of financial problems. In a rage, Anushamma headed towards an irrigation tank in the village, after threatening her husband that she would commit suicide.

People who witnessed the incident said that first Anushamma jumped into the river and then, in a bid to save her, Subhash dived in. Gnyaneshwar also tried to save his parents, but all three were sucked into the waters. They died, leaving Sreeja and Sreevani to the mercy of God.

Subhash’s eighty-year-old mother, who lost her husband a year ago, lives alone in the village. Relatives hardly care about the daughters of Subhash, but are ready to claim any compensation that the government may give.

“Sreeja and Sreevani need to be accommodated in some good hostel. Private educational institutions should come forward to help the girl children. The State government needs to treat this as a farmer’s suicide and deposit Rs 5 lakh as fixed deposit in the name of the girls and settle Rs 1 lakh debt as per government order,” said R Laxmi, representative of Caring Citizens Collective.