Farmer dies by suicide unable to bear abuse

A farmer died by suicide on his farm near here early Thursday as he was apparently upsetoverthe torture and abusive language allegedly used by a privatefinancial firm for not repaying a loan, police said.

In a letter purportedly written by him and recoveredfrom his house, the 30-year-old Anandan said the employees ofthe financial firm had used abusive language for the delay torepay the Rs 45-lakh loan, the police said.

Anandan, who had also been doing plumbing work, had saidhe had not been able to repay the loan to construct a houseas he had becomen financially weak due to the COVID-19pandemic as agriculture and his job got affected, they said.

Holding the firm and employees responsible for hisextreme step, Anandan had sought retrieval of the house fromthe bank and save his family consisting of mother, wife and aone-year-old child, the police said.

Based on a complaint from Anandan's wife, police retrievedthe body and sent it for a postmortem, they said, adding thatfurther investigations have begun.