BLO found hanging, husband blames SIR stress, files FIR
Times of India | 20 November 2025
JALPAIGURI: A 48-year-old ICDS worker, appointed as a booth level officer (BLO) in New Glencoe tea estate in Jalpaiguri's Malbazar, was found hanging near her home in the tea estate on Wednesday, prompting her family to allege that Shanti Muni Ekka was extremely upset that her repeated pleas to be relieved as a BLO were turned down.
Shanti's husband, Suku Ekka, has filed an FIR naming the Election Commission of India in Malbazar police station.
Suku alleged that his wife was struggling to hand over Special Intensive Revision (SIR) enumeration forms to tea estate workers, who were never at home during daytime. She had to work late into the night and her inability to speak, read or write Bengali was making the form-filling process and data upload increasingly difficult.
CM Mamata Banerjee immediately expressed her shock over the death.
"Deeply shocked and saddened. Today again, we lost a Booth Level Officer in Mal, Jalpaiguri — Shanti Muni Ekka, a tribal lady, an anganwadi worker who took her own life under the unbearable pressure of the ongoing SIR work. 28 people have already lost their lives since SIR began — some due to fear and uncertainty, others due to stress and overload," she posted on X.
Attacking the EC for the rushed SIR exercise in Bengal, the CM said, "Such precious lives are being lost because of the unplanned, relentless workload imposed by the so-called Election Commission of India. A process that earlier took 3 years is now being forced into 2 months on the eve of elections to please political masters, putting inhuman pressure on BLOs. I urge the ECI to act with conscience and immediately halt this unplanned drive before more lives are lost," she added.
The EC has sought a report from the Jalpaiguri district magistrate on the death, a senior official said.
Shanti was the BLO for booth number 20/101 of Rangamati Gram Panchayat in Malbazar.
"My wife did not know how to read or write Bengali. The SIR forms are in Bengali. She visited the local BDO office several times asking to be relieved from the duty. But nobody paid heed to her appeals. She was very frustrated and upset. We never thought she would take such a drastic step," Suku said.
Son D'Souza said, "My mother's booth was in a garden where she would not get a single voter in their house during the day as most of them are garden workers. She had no option but to visit the houses at night. It's not easy to do that in a garden. The SIR duty had left my mother mentally devastated."
Bengal tribal affairs minister Bulu Chik Baraik and Malbazar BDO Rashmidipta Biswas visited Shanti's house in the morning and spoke to the family members. Although the BDO was tight-lipped, the minister blamed EC for the incident.
"An unnatural death case has been registered with Malbazar PS. We are inquiring into the incident," Jalpaiguri police superintendent Khandbahale Umesh Ganpath said.
On Nov 10, a 50-year-old BLO, also an ICDS worker, had died after suffering a cerebral stroke while distributing SIR enumeration forms. Namita Hansda's husband, Madhab, had alleged that the Anganwadi worker was under pressure from her supervisors to complete 80% of the form distribution in Memari block-2 booth within five days. The husband, however, did not file a formal complaint.