A poor, dalit man in Bihar’s flood-hit Kishanganj district on Saturday committed suicide after staying hungry along with his family for three days as relief material did not reach the school building where he and others had taken shelter.
Bindeshwar Ram, about 39, hanged himself to death from the ceiling of the school out of insufferable desperation arising from his seemingly endless wait for the local administration to send relief material there, said his wife and other witnesses.
His death sparked outrage across Bihar and prompted the Opposition parties to slam the state’s Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) government for alleged deficiencies in flood relief operations.
After Ram’s village, Khagra, was flooded three days ago like hundreds of other villages in the far-eastern district, he and his family had fled their home and taken refuge at the school building located on higher land.
“He hanged himself for he could not see all of his family crying with great hunger,” his wailing wife was quoted as saying by the local media.
Even though the Kishanganj district administration denied that Ram’s suicide was due to absence of relief material, district magistrate Aditya Kumar Das ordered a probe into the allegations. “The death seems to have resulted from some personal reasons. The police have been asked to probe the entire matter. Relief operations have been streamlined and are under constant monitoring,” he said.
“This is a shame for the Nitish Kumar government. This is no small matter that a poor man has to kill himself following acute hunger even as the state government claims that rescue and relief operations have all been fine,” said senior state Congress leader Premchand Mishra.
The ruling JD(U)’s state spokesman Neeraj Kumar said: “Nobody found responsible for this incident will be spared. Such culprits must be handed capital punishment.”
In Kishanganj, more than 2.5 lakh people have been affected by the floods in hundreds of villages in the past three days.
The flood situation in other districts such as Purnea, Araria, Katihar, Muzaffarpur and Khagaria still remains alarming.