K'taka: 1 more sugarcane farmer commits suicide

Bidar, Karnataka, May 27: Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy's overnight stay in a sugarcane farmer's house and a host of assurances could not check the ongoing suicides of sugarcane farmers as one more farmer allegedly committed suicide by consuming poison last night at Mangalagi Village in Humnabad Taluk.

Officials sources said Kasinath Basalingappa(30) took the extreme step as his sugarcane was not purchased by any sugar factory.

Basalingappa who was a shareholder in the Sahakara Sakkara Karakhane (SSK) cultivated sugarcane in his three-acre land but the SSK did not lift his produce.

Official sources said with this, so far 43 farmers had committed suicide in this district during the year.

Meanwhile, the Renuka Sugar Factory at Havalga Village in Afjalpur Taluk in Gulbarga District expressed its inability to buy sugarcane any more since it did not have the capacity.

Unheeding the sugar factory management's announcement, hundreds of farmers have brought their sugarcane to the factory on trucks insisting the factory to buy them.

Sensing trouble, the factory management approached the police for protection following which Sec 144 had been imposed in the periphery of the factory.

UNI