Unable to repay a bank loan, a resident of Digha in Rabale, committed suicide by hanging himself from the ceiling fan at home.
Sitaram Ganpat Potbhare, 50, an autorickshaw driver, had taken a loan of Rs. 5 lakh from Satara Co-operative Bank around four months ago. “He was in debt after he his daughter’s wedding. To repay that loan, he took another from the bank for which he had to pay a monthly instalment of Rs. 14,000 every month. He had paid around two instalments initially, after which he could not pay,” Mangesh Sonkamble, Potbhare’s neighbour, said.
Potbhare had left behind a two-page suicide note in Marathi that contained a lot of figures. API Sameer Kamble with Rabale-MIDC police station said, “Potbhare was not educated, so the note he has written is not legible. From what we could decipher, he took the extreme step due to pressure to repay the loan. On Friday, someone from the bank had visited him demanding payment, and he had paid Rs. 4,100 to him. On Saturday, he asked his wife and two sons to visit some friends and ask for a loan. After sending his family out of the house, he took the extreme step.”
His wife and sons returned home in the evening to find him dead, and informed the police. “The family is in a state of shock and are not in a situation to share more information. Once the final rites and rituals are completed, we will do a detailed investigation to confirm the reason behind the suicide,” Mr. Kamble said.
The writer is a freelance journalist
Sitaram Potbhare, an autorickshaw driver, had taken a bank loan of Rs. 5 lakh for his daughter’s wedding
