Maharashtra farmer's suicide: Bank manager held responsible!

Amravati (Maharashtra), June 15: In an unprecedented move, the Maharashtra Police has booked the branch manager of nationalised bank as responsible for the recent suicide here of a farmer, an official said here on Monday. The accused, Santosh Kumar (37), is the manager of the Bank Of Maharashtra's Morshi Branch in the district, and has secured an anticipatory bail in the case. Strangely, even before the FIR pertaining to abettment of suicide was lodged against Kumar, the BoM management suspended him - to which the bank's union has cried foul. In his anticipatory bail plea, Santosh Kumar contended that he is being victimized and harassed since he refused to abide by the diktats of local Bharatiya Janata Party legislator from Morshi Anil S. Bonde, whom he did not name. "All this is totally unacceptable. We have lodged a strong protest with the bank management. We have demanded BoM to take up the matter with the highest level in the government and other concerned bodies," an agitated Sunil Deshpande, president of the Bank Of Maharashtra Officers' Organisation (BOMOO), told IANS. Deshpande said that a farmer, Sudhir Gawande (40) of Nashirpur village, and some others had approached the branch manager for further farm loans on Friday noon. However, since the existing loan account - which was in the name of Gawande's father, Wamanrao Gawande, who is alive, showed an outstanding of around Rs.400,000, he was asked to come later. "He went home and late Friday evening, we learnt that he consumed liquor and then hanged himself in his home. The local villagers did not allow his funeral to be completed that night and even the next morning (Saturday) till the police registered a complaint against Santosh Kumar," BOMOO deputy general secretary Sunil Rajkarne, based in Amravati, told IANS.