Image Courtesy: AP
Image Courtesy: AP
It was recently reported by The Telegraph that two senior citizen friends died from a heart attack in East Burdwan, West Bengal. Their deaths were allegedly caused due to being in panic over collecting documents to prove their citizenship amidst certain statements coming from the Centre about nation-wide NRC. While this stance of the government was quite clear until a few days ago, the Centre is now back tracking from its own statements, creating an atmosphere on confusion which is certainly not helping the climate of fear which has already set in amongst the masses.
The two deceased, Abul Kashem Sekh aged 68, and Abdus Sattar Sekh aged 65, lived just 800m away from each other at Karui in Katwa. They passed away just a few hours apart, in the wee hours. Both of them were marginal farmers who were compelled to stop their work in the fields to try and gather their land related documents from government offices, living under the fear of being excluded in the nation-wide NRC and meet the same fate as their fellow citizens in Assam. They were, reportedly, knocking doors of government offices, including those of gram panchayat and block, in the days preceding their deaths, in the hope of finding their land documents that would help them make changes in their Aadhaar cards.
Sources informed The Telegraph that their deaths have prompted anti-CAA tension in the village where several residents had been gripped by panic.
This incident just adds to the deaths caused due to panic over CAA-NRC. Sabrang India has earlier reported about over 11 deaths in Bengal caused due to the prevalent terror surrounding the uncertainty of CAA-NRC. There have been cases of suicides and even of people dying while in a queue for collecting their documents from government offices. What is pertinent note is that most of these deaths are among the common working class people.
Previous deaths
It was reported on September 26 that according to the police a 25-year-old man hung himself in Dhupguri, while a 50-year-old man jumped, into a well in Jalpaiguri. 32-year-old brick kiln worker Kamal Hossain Mondal who was worried about his family’s fate if the NRC is implemented in Bengal, was found hanging from a tree near his house on September 22.
On December 15, India Today reported that 36-year-old woman was found dead in West Bengal’s Purba Bardhaman with her family claiming that she was scared about CAB (now CAA) and NRC as she had visited the block office many times to get documents for her son who did not have a birth certificate.
The Telegraph reported on September 21 about a 38-year-old farmer hanging himself to death in Jalpaiguri and a 52-year-old Mantu Sarkar dying after falling ill while standing in queue with thousands of other villagers at the block office in Balurghat to get his digital ration card.
The panic over CAA-NRC has taken lives of about 16 or possibly more people, mainly from the working class, such as farmers, daily wage workers or MGNREGA workers, in West Bengal
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