Kolkata: A 28-year-old man allegedly committed suicide in West Bengal’s Howrah district on the day the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls began across the state, reportedly due to fear of the ongoing exercise.
According to officials, the deceased, identified as Zaheer Mal, a daily wage labourer from the Khalisani Gram Panchayat area under the Uluberia Purba Assembly constituency, was found hanging in his home on Monday. Police from Uluberia police station recovered his body, but no suicide note was found.
Zaheer’s wife, Regina Bibi, told the media that her husband had been terrified about the SIR process. “He always said he would be sent to Bangladesh. This fear had been haunting him for the last few days. He committed suicide out of fear,” she said.
The incident occurred as over 80,000 booth-level officers (BLOs) began distributing enumeration forms across the state as part of the SIR process.
Following the tragedy, a Trinamool Congress delegation visited the victim’s home on the instructions of the party’s All India General Secretary, Abhishek Banerjee. State Public Works and Public Health Engineering Minister Pulak Roy, who met the bereaved family, said, “Our party stands with this family. An atmosphere of fear has been created in the state in the name of conducting SIR. It is being conveyed that speaking in the Bengali language means being a Bangladeshi. I will tell the central government to stop this politics of death.”
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), however, blamed the Trinamool Congress for spreading panic. “They are misleading the common people. The Mamata Banerjee–Abhishek Banerjee party is trying to fulfil its political interests by threatening people over the SIR,” said Union Minister of State for Education and DoNER, Sukanta Majumdar.
Trinamool Congress leaders have been alleging a rise in suicides across West Bengal due to fear surrounding the SIR and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). They claim that ever since the revision exercise was announced, many residents have feared that their names might be removed from the state’s voters’ list.
Several similar incidents have been reported in recent weeks. On October 28, a man named Pradeep Kar from Panihati in North 24 Parganas allegedly took his own life, leaving behind a note citing fear of SIR. On October 30, 95-year-old Kshitish Majumdar from West Midnapore reportedly committed suicide after discovering his name missing from the 2002 voters’ list. In Cooch Behar’s Dinhata, Khairul Sheikh attempted suicide by consuming poison for the same reason.
On November 2, Sheikh Sirajuddin, a hotel owner from Digha, died at his home in East Midnapore’s Ramnagar after reportedly becoming distressed over a document error. The same day, a migrant worker, Bimal Santra (51) from East Burdwan’s Nabagram, reportedly died in Tamil Nadu after hearing about the SIR process.
Most recently, on Monday, 60-year-old Hasina Beg from Hooghly’s Dankuni Municipality also died after allegedly being upset over her name missing from the 2002 voters’ list.
With IANS inputs