A labourer was found hanging from a tree at a village near Mainaguri this morning and his family alleged that he had committed suicide as he had become jobless because of the ban on river mining.
Police sources said villagers had spotted Ranjan Roy's body hanging from a tree near his house at Jalpesh, around 25km from here. The brother of the deceased, Nani Roy, said Ranjan, 21, had killed himself as he had found it difficult to repay the loan following the ban on the sand mining.
"Ranjan used to collect sand from the Jalpesh river for contractors who had bagged the right to mine riverbeds against the payment of a fee. But after a ban was imposed on the mining in March, he was struggling to run his family. Recently, he had also borrowed money from some people and could not find any way to repay the loan," said Nani.
"He was suffering from depression and took the drastic step last night," he added.
Shyam Prasad, the convener of the joint forum of stakeholders who are involved in the mining, echoed Nani.
"As per the order of the National Green Tribunal, the state irrigation department had banned mining on riverbeds. Over one lakh people are involved in this sector across north Bengal and all of them have been jobless for the past three-four months."
Amitabha Maiti, the superintendent of police of Jalpaiguri, said: "We have registered a case of unnatural death. The body has been sent for post-mortem. A probe is on."
[Via: Telegraph]
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