New India: Engineer commits suicide after no salary for 27 months

Biswajit Majumdar, Utility and Distribution Manager at Assam’s Nagaon mill of Hindustan Paper Corporation (HPC), a public sector undertaking, was not picking up calls from his wife in Kolkata and his daughters in New Delhi and Kerala. Upon receiving distress calls from his wife, his colleagues broke open the door of his officer’s quarters on April 29 and found his decomposing body hanging from the ceiling fan. On the door of the refrigerator, a note was scribbled. It read, “I quit. GOI (Government of India) is responsible for my death.” It’s a stinging indictment of the Narendra Modi-led BJP government’s false claims of the Indian economy being on a roller coaster.

Majumdar did not receive any salary for the last 27 months after the Nagaon mill shut down in March, 2017. A mechanical engineer, Majumdar is the third employee of the Nagaon mill to take his own life. No treatment has claimed another 31 lives. Taking the Cachar and Nagaon mills together, the death toll has now reached 55.

Majumdar leaves behind his wife who earns a paltry sum of money as a montessori school teacher in Kolkata. One of his daughters is pursuing her MPhil in Anthropology from Delhi University and the other is into gene studies at a Kerala institute. No one knows what will happen to their dreams now. Ever since the mill closed down, Majumdar was dipping into his savings to keep the family going. A few months back, he had to even break the last savings parked in his insurance policy. After that money too ran out, he took the extreme step.

Leader of the Nagaon Paper Mill Worker’s Union, Hemanta Kakati said that last year, two employees, Radhika Majumdar and Prabha Deka, also committed suicide. He added that the families of all 3,000 employees were debt-ridden and that most members were eating one meal a day.