BANGALORE, NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 28 INCOME: Rs 25,000 pm (gross)EDUCATION LOAN: Rs 3.5 lakh• Rs 1.5 lakh from PNB Lucknow (EMI: Rs 3,500)• Rs 2 lakh from Canara Bank, KGF (EMI: Rs 5,600)CAR LOAN: Rs 2 lakh• From IOC (EMI: Rs 1,300). IOC will waive thisOUTSTANDING: Rs 2.3 lakh (On one education loan, including interest; PNB loan insured)

While the oil mafia tried to entice him with bribes to turn a blind eye to fuel adulteration, murdered IOC sales manager S Manjunath refused to waver in the line of duty, despite his own financial constraints.

The big question now is who will help his family bear the burden—after paying the EMIs, he was left with around Rs 5,000 to manage his own monthly affairs, they say.

‘‘On both the education loans, he has only paid the interest amount so far. The principal amounts are still outstanding. On the day before he died, he made a payment of Rs 10,000 on the PNB loan,’’ says Manjunath’s father M Shanmugham who was given an ATM card by Manjunath to access his account.

A few days before his son’s murder, Shanmugham, who received a mail from PNB on Manjunath’s outstanding loan, wrote a letter to his son asking him not to default and clear his loans. After his death, Manjunath’s landlord in UP informed Shanmugham that his letter had been received but had not been opened by his son.

Today, Shanmugham is glad that his son did not get to read that last letter. In the letter ‘‘written after a long time,’’ according to Shanmugham, the father complained that Manjunath, despite being the only other earning member in the family, was not doing his bit—he had not saved money and he had defaulted in recent months on the two education loan payments.

Shanmugham had also enclosed his own 1997 BEML payslip, with the letter, to show his son that he had educated three children and run his home with a salary of merely Rs 5,000.

‘‘In the letter, I said he should at least make sure the two education loans of Rs 1.5 lakh from the Punjab National Bank and a Rs 2 lakh loan from the Canara Bank in KGF is cleared. I also told him that we would require about Rs 15 lakh to conduct his marriage and that of his brother and sister,’’ says Shanmugham. ‘‘I am glad he did not see that letter. It would have hurt him,’’ he says.

Manjunath paid all his IIM-Lucknow expenses through the two educational loans, says his family who live in a small 1,200 sq ft house in the former mining town of KGF.

‘‘We are a middle class family. It was my brother who showed us that we can rise above our limitations if we tried. He told me while he was trying to crack the CAT exam that we have to graduate from the best institutions in the country if we have to be somebody,’’ says S Raghavendran, Manjunath’s 25-year-old younger brother, an IIT Madras product.

IOC PACKAGE  

Rs 30 lakh & monthly pension of Rs 10,000. IOC board also decided to waive the Rs 2.25 lakh loan availed by the Sales Officer. The package includes: • Ex-gratia under basic-plus-dearness allowance norm of 100 days: Rs 19.49 lakh • Group saving-linked one-time insurance amount of Rs 75,000; personal insurance of Rs 75,000 and an employee deposit-linked insurance Rs 62,000 (Schemes to which each IOC employee is automatically enrolled the day he joins) • Relief under Workers’ Compensation Act: Rs 4.27 lakh, Gratuity: Rs 1.15 lakh, PF: Rs 1.10 lakh, Leave encashment: Rs 19,000.