Land lost, Singur farmer said no to compensation, commits suicide

A farmer whose land was acquired for the Tata small car project in Singur and whose family refused to collect compensation saying...

A farmer whose land was acquired for the Tata small car project in Singur and whose family refused to collect compensation saying the acquisition was against their wishes committed suicide early this morning, police said.

Prasanta Das, 39, from Khaser Bherhi village (north) in Singur, was found hanging in a cowshed by relatives. They said Das was “mentally upset” ever since the family’s land was acquired for the Tata project. “Around 4.5 bighas were acquired by the state government against the will of the family. The land was held jointly by Prasanta, his younger brothers Tapas and Sushanta and his father Mahadeb,” said Binoy Das, Prasanta Das’s cousin.

Said Supratim Sarkar, SP, Hooghly: “Prasanta’s family says the suicide was because of the land loss. We are investigating this.”

A senior government official confirmed to The Indian Express that over an acre owned by the Das family had fallen within the project’s 997-acre area. As per the deal worked out, the family would have got about Rs 12 lakh (at the rate of Rs 8.8 lakh per acre for single-crop land). The land was in the name of Prasanta Das’s father Mahadeb Das. As of now, the Das family has a house and about a third of an acre of non-farming land.

Das’s is one of the 3000 families who have refused to accept compensation. As per records, 12,000 families have taken their compensation money amounting to Rs 95 crore — Rs 20 crore is waiting to be disbursed. The government says it will make a final request to families still holding out. If they don’t accept, the cheques will be deposited with the court, an official said. Trinamool leader Mamata Banerjee was quick to rush in. In Panskura when the news of the suicide broke, she went to Singur where members of the Save Land Committee took out a procession carrying Prasanta’s body along the newly constructed wall of the Tata project site. But aware that a majority of the farmers had collected their compensation checks and locals not so warm to the idea of another round of protests, she left early.

Work on the project site is going on and as The Indian Express had first reported, several contracts and daily-wage jobs have gone to local families. But Prasanta’s wasn’t one of them.

An active member of the Save Land Committee — the group set up to oppose the project — Prasanta was “mentally disturbed after the land was taken,” said his mother Geeta Das. “He was prescribed treatment and counselling by the doctor. He didn’t say anything unusual before his death. He was always worried how the family would live without the land,” she said.

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Prasanta’s two daughters Sushmita and Urmila are primary-school students. His wife has no source of income. “We didn’t take money for the land because the family did not want to part with the land,” Geeta said.