Related Stories SIMI'S SECOND COMINGSTRIKE FORCEONE-HORNED DILEMMAWAKE UP CALLBEAR MINIMUM

The mass deaths have reopened the fissures between arhtiyas and farmers with a section of traders saying they would not lend money to farmers any longer. Calling Mam Chand a martyr to the cause of the traders, Suresh Jindal, senior vice-president of the Haryana Beopar Mandal, fumed that the government’s loan waiver policy was encouraging farmers not to repay the traders.
But his diatribe finds little resonance on the ground. As Janak Raj Singla, Mam Chand’s relative and a commission agent, puts it: “We have a symbiotic relationship with the farmer. We have to work together.’’
Interestingly, most villagers are at pains to underline how the brothers were unlike the traditional moneylenders. “Pradeep was not tight-fisted, he was happy to spend on friends,’’ says the sarpanch, recalling the young man’s chicken-and-whisky parties.
These sundowners often worried Mam Chand, a teetotaler himself. Om Prakash, his brother, recalls how he would fret about Amit getting sozzled at the sheller. “But that was once in a blue moon, and he had never made any such complaints of late,’’ he is quick to clear the air.
Both the brothers were well-known pranksters as well. Surinder Singh, Pradeep’s junior, remembers how Amit would throw water from the rooftop on him. “I used to tell him ‘Grow up, now you run a rice sheller’.’’
Villagers say the brothers were also good friends, sharing both a fag and a joke with equal ease. So were their wives Babli and Seema.
Shobha Sharma, a neighbour, is all praise for Babli who got married to Pradeep shortly after he divorced his first wife. “She was very beautiful, like a fairy. It is because of her that Nancy, 7, and Vanshika, 4, stood first in their classes,’’ she says. Seema, who was eight-month-pregnant with a baby boy, and had a daughter, Yashika, 3, had a fetish for cleanliness. “Their house used to sparkle. They did all the work themselves, right from mopping the floors to doing the dishes and clothes,’’ says Angoori Devi.
Neighbours recall Mam Chand rushing out of the house on that fateful Sunday morning of March 16 to get medicines for Seema.
At 10 am, the family got a call from their daughter Shalini. Rajesh Kumar says: “As always my brother-in-law Amit asked me to disconnect saying he would call back. They seemed to be in good humour. My wife had spent four days with them in February when they had come to pick her up and she too did not find anything amiss.’’
The traders at the grain market too had no idea that something was wrong. Surender Taneja, a commission agent whose shop is next to theirs, can’t believe they could have taken their own lives. “You can’t expect so many people to enter into a suicide pact. Besides, how could they drive their little daughters into the canal? Even if they were neck-deep in debt, we would have bailed them out. This tragedy is a blot on our mandi.’’
Friends and relatives have now pinned their hopes on the Central Bureau of Investigation probe to clear the fog surrounding the tragedy.
As the sun goes down on the lush green fields, Gurdeep Kaur of Talli Farm sighs as she remembers how the brothers returned her Rs 1 lakh on Friday, two days before they disappeared. ‘‘They always did their dealings together. They used to say this was to ensure that even if one of them met with an accident, the other would be able to complete the deal.’’
In death, they could not keep this promise.

Mam Chand Singla and his family scribbled the names of people who owed them money

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