Jobless Since Lockdown, Kanpur Man Hangs Self with Wife as Children Sleep in Next Room

A man, who was rendered jobless due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown, and his wife took their lives in Kanpur in the wee hours of Thursday. The case was reported from the city’s Chakeri locality in Uttar Pradesh, police said.

The incident came to light after 39-year-old Rakesh Kumar and his wife Archana (36) were found hanging from the ceiling of the room of the house in Jagaipurwa, the Hindustan Times reported. Chakeri police added that a single bed sheet was used as noose to hang themselves to death. The bodies of the deceased have been sent for autopsy, police said.

Kumar, who worked in a shop selling mobile accessories before the pandemic, lost his job in April after the shop closed down. Since then, he was unemployed, SHO Chakeri Ravi Shrivastava said.

“I was asleep with my two grandchildren on that night. When I did not hear from either Rakesh and Archana for hours, I went to their room and discovered them hanging,” Kumar’s mother told the police.

She added that the couple had a fracas over their finances on Wednesday evening, following which Kumar left the house, but returned after a short while. Kumar and wife then went to their room, Devi said.

Recently, a 28-year-old migrant worker from Jharkhand was found dead at his residence in Uttar Pradesh’s Noida in a suspected case of suicide, police said. The man was found hanging through a noose from the skylight (ventilator) of his rented accommodation in Sector 63’s Chotpur village in the morning, they said.

The deceased hailed from Palamau district of Jharkhand and worked for a private firm in Sector 63 here, the official said.

Meanwhile, nearly 43,000 people engaged in farming sector and daily wage earners committed suicide in 2019, according to the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data. As many as 32,563 daily wage earners ended their lives during the year and formed 23.4 per cent of the total suicide cases in the country, up from 30,132 in 2018, the data showed.

India reported an average 381 deaths by suicide daily in 2019, totalling 1,39,123 fatalities over the year, according to the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data. A 3.4 per cent increase was observed in suicides during 2019 (1,39,123 suicides) as compared to 2018 (1,34,516) and 2017 (1,29,887), the data showed.

The rate of suicide (incidents per 1 lakh population) rose by 0.2 per cent in 2019 over 2018, as per the data. According to the statistics by the NCRB, which functions under the Union Home Ministry, the suicide rate in cities (13.9 per cent) was higher as compared to all-India suicide rate (10.4 per cent) in 2019.