The death of a 15-year-old girl from the village of Peravoor in Kannur district created a huge furore after a newspaper report called it, “Tribal girl commits suicide unable to bear starvation.” The report by Deshabhimani said that the girl had written in her suicide note that she could not bear the hunger after being left with no food for days.
Sruthi Mol, a 9th standard student was found hanging on Wednesday. She had committed suicide in the evening while her parents were out for work.
Since she belonged to a scheduled tribe caste, the suicide soon snowballed into a political controversy with the opposition alleging that the death was due to the government’s inefficiency. CPI(M) leader Pinarayi Vijayan wrote,” Oommen Chandy and his ministers have no time to see poverty and hunger, but are interested to serve the interests of land mafia and fraudulent gangs.”
Not just the opposition, Dalit activists too started outraging on social media.
But did the girl take her life due to starvation? The local police deny.
“No, the reason for the suicide was not poverty. The family was not living in poverty, both the parents are working. Her father runs some other agricultural business too. They gave her good education. We believe the parents never starved her, but were perhaps busy with work,” Kelakam Sub Inspector R Rajesh told The News Minute.
The sub-inspector added that the girl was depressed that she had to stay at home while her parents went out for work. Her parents, both workers at cashew plantations had been out when the teenager committed suicide.
Her father, Ravi told Asianet News that his daughter had been upset that he had not bought her a bicycle. He refuted news reports that she was left starving.
“She was sad that we didn’t take her out frequently as she had tuitions. She was also upset that I didn’t buy her a cycle. We were doing okay, we had loans, but it never affected her. I was upset at news reports that said she had no food,” he said.
When her parents were away for work, Sruti was staying back home with her grandmother.
Over the last few years, successive Kerala governments have come under fire for neglecting tribal population in the state. Following this, many welfare schemes had been started all over the state.