Man ends life after village dropped from growth plan

One may often have heard about people committing suicide for personal reasons. But a man in a Uttar Pradesh killed himself for reasons that affected the entire village.

According to reports, 38-year-old Arvind Kumar, a resident of Chandpur village in Fatehpur district, allegedly killed himself over lack of development in his village.

Another youth identified as Santosh Chauhan of the same village had also threatened to commit suicide for the same reason and climbed atop a water tank in the village but was persuaded to come down  after 24-hours.

The reports said Kumar was ‘upset’ after the name of his village was dropped after being selected for development under the ‘Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojna’, an ambitious project launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently.

BJP Lok Sabha member from the district  Niranjan Jyoti had selected Chandpur village for development under the project. However, she dropped the village after it was pointed out to her that the population of the village was around 8,000 which was more than prescribed in the project.

The MP was then asked to select some other village.

People became agitated over this and held demonstration also. Kumar reportedly became so upset that he hanged himself inside his house on Friday. He left a ‘suicide note’ stating that dropping it from the yojna was the reason for the extreme step.

A case was registered.

Another youth, Santosh Chauhan also threatened to kill himself and climbed atop a water tank on Friday but came down on Saturday after being persuaded by the locals, reports said. The villagers have threatened to intensify their agitation on the issue. The local MLA has assured that she would ensure development of the village.

Some village ‘pradhans’ (chief) have demanded that the ‘adarsh gram’ (ideal village) be selected through a lottery so that there was no allegation of favouritism.