An unmarried middle-aged woman, allegedly suffering from panic linked to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process after her form could not be uploaded due to server problems, chose self-immolation at a village in the Bhatar block of East Burdwan last evening.
Police recovered her charred body today and sent it to Burdwan Medical College and Hospital for post-mortem. A case of unnatural death has been registered. Power minister Aroop Biswas, who has been visiting the Trinamul Congress’s war rooms across East Burdwan since yesterday, reacted sharply on receiving news of the woman’s death.
The minister said: “The BJP and the Election Commission of India must take responsibility for such deaths, as the hurried commission is consistently failing to ensure a stable server, resulting in repeated failures during form uploads.” He added: “This woman was already panicked by the BJP’s high-pitched propaganda, and when the slow server failed to upload her form, she became even more fearful of losing her citizenship.”
Unmarried Mastura Khatun (40) of Bhumsor village in Bhatar block had, according to her family members, been distressed since the day she received the enumeration form for the Special Intensive Revision. Her elder sister, Astura Begum, said today: “Our parents passed away long ago and Mastura was living alone. She somehow developed the wrong perception that she would be pushed out of the country if her form was not submitted on time. When it couldn’t be uploaded, she chose to die, we believe.”
Bhatar MLA Manhobinda Adhikari and Jadavpur MP Sayoni Ghosh met the bereaved family today following instructions from the Trinamul Congress’s national general secretary, Abhishek Banerjee. Minister Biswas said: “May I ask the Commission — how many more deaths do you want in Bengal? Your autocratic decision to complete two years’ work in two months is costing Bengali lives almost every day.”
Meanwhile, BJP state committee member Lakshman Ghorui has blamed the TMC for politicising the deaths. He said: “The TMC’s hyper-aggressive approach has frightened common people, which has led to such incidents.”