An Odisha man has allegedly committed suicide just because he could
not arrange a sum of Rs. 20000 for paying it as a bribe and get a house
allotted in his name under the rural housing scheme. The deceased,
Laxmidhar Behera, belongs to a poverty-stricken family and do not have a
pucca house for which he rightly deserves to get a pucca house under
the scheme. Behera was a resident of Nirakarpur Patanasahi.
As
alleged by his family members, Laxmidhar has taken the extreme step of
bidding goodbye to this world after he faced bribery demands by
government officials who are concerned with the scheme. As stated by the
relatives, the officials demanded a bribe of Rs 15,000-20,000 for
sanctioning a pucca house under the rural-housing scheme.
The
deceased, however, has also made a video recording before taking the
ultimate step of finishing his life. The video has gone viral now. He
has clearly mentioned it in the video that the government officials have
demanded him a bribe, but he could not arrange the sum.
Behera
stated the following in the video, “I had approached everybody, but no
one listened to me. The officials asked me to pay something between Rs
15,000 and Rs 20,000. From where I can arrange the money? I work as
labourer.”
His family has added that Behera was in his mid-thirties and was already suffering from a debt burden of over Rs 1.5 lakh.
After
the video of citing the reason for committing suicide went viral, the
Khurda District Collector Nirmal Mishra has said that there will be a
thorough investigation into the whole episode to find out the official
who had demanded a bribe from the man.
Mishra also added that as
per the primary investigation it is found that no one has had demanded a
bribe from the deceased. He also added, “But, a detailed probe will be
conducted.”
The incident has now drawn sharp criticism as both the
Congress and the BJP has alleged that the Naveen Patnaik government has
launched a number of schemes which has given way for corruption.
After the incident, BJP leader and Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan visited
Behera’s village and met his family members. Pradhan termed this
incident as a “government-sponsored murder and not a suicide”.
Source: The Sentinel
