JOIN USCouple tries to immolate official, self over apathy
Administrative apathy reportedly forced an old couple to make a daring attempt to kill a senior revenue official and themselves in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras district, about 400 km from here, on Monday.
The couple, however, could not succeed in their attempt and were caught by the other officials and taken into custody.
According to reports, 61-year-old Dharm Prakash and his wife had been visiting the revenue officials for the past two years with the complaint about the wrongful division of their agricultural land in Sikandarau tehsil (town area).
Unable to bear with the indifference of the officials, the couple decided to end their lives along with the SDM.
With that intension, the couple brought a can of kerosene along during their latest visit to the tehsil on Monday. Soon as the couple met the official, the woman removed the can’s cap, doused herself and her husband with the inflammable oil before pouring it on the official.
However, sources said she was overpowered before she could touch a match to herself and the other two. The couple were arrested.
“We have been running from one official to another with our application for a long time. No one listens to us. We wanted to finish the ordeal once and for all,” Dharm Prakash said.
The couple said they had also visited the state capital and met senior officials but to no avail.
Nearly a year and a half ago, a snake charmer released several venomous reptiles into the “tehsil” (town area) office in Uttar Pradesh’s Basti district apparently frustrated by the revenue official’s failure to allot him a land on lease to maintain the snakes.
The snake charmer, Hakkul, had been demanding a piece of land on lease for a long time.
He had earlier met senior officials but they all turned him away saying that there was no provision to allot land for keeping snakes.
UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has been holding “Janata Darbars” in the state capital in a bid to directly intervene and solve people’s problems.
The incident on Monday, however, reflects that his efforts are falling short.