Agartala, Nov 25 (UNI) Rubbishing CPI (M) and Congress' allegations that the death of four persons in a family in Simna area of Mohanpur in West Tripura last Saturday was due to extreme poverty, the state government on Monday claimed that the victims were forced to commit suicide following their neighbour's undue pressure.
The education minister and Mohanpur MLA Ratan Lal Nath said here today that the victim family had been getting all benefits like the Below Poverty Line(BPL) families.
The head of the household Praesh Tanti (35) was a daily wage earner and also did farming and occasionally sold vegetables in the local market to support his family.
According to police, Paresh and his wife Sandhani Tanti (32) were found hanging from a tree on Nov 23 morning, and, later, the villagers found their children Bishal Tanti (9) and Rupali Tanti (5) poisoned to death inside the house. It was believed that the couple had poisoned the children before they hanged themselves.
Leader of the opposition and former chief minister Manik Sarkar and Convener of Tripura Pradesh Congress Committee Chief Subal Bhowmik visited the family separately and alleged that the deaths happened due to extreme poverty. There was severe shortage of wage earning job, including MGNREGA work in the area for past few months and the family was under pressure for repayment of loan but the government did not do anything.
However, Nath said, “Paresh was given 76 days work under MGNREGA in the last financial year and this year so far in last seven months he worked for 50 days under MGNREGA. Moreover, he was involved in small farming activities, vegetable vending in the city market and daily-wage jobs. So, it is not true that he was the victim of extreme poverty, joblessness and government neglect but he was under tremendous psychological pressure from his neighbour.”
He explained that Paresh had bought a plot of land at the cost of Rs 1.20 lakh three years ago from a tribal man Prasanna Debbarma. According to law, tribal land in Tripura cannot be transferred to a non-tribal person and as a result he could not possess the legal documents of the land despite paying money.
Recently, Paresh sold a portion of the same land to another tribal Padma Debbarma for Rs 7000 where Padma started growing cannabis, he added.
Following the state government's action against cannabis and all other narcotic substances, the main owner of the land Prasanna destroyed Padma Debbarma's cannabis farm and asked Paresh to leave the land.
On the other hand, Padma allegedly forced Pakesh to pay compensation for the loss of her cannabis farm, which Nath claimed to be reason behind the suicide of the family.
However, the minister said the government has sought separate report from civil and police administration regarding the incident and if the investigation indicated that the surviving members of the family needed support, the government would help them.
The minister requested the opposition parties to restrain from false campaign based on distorted facts.
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