Mandya, June 26 (ANI): In a morbid case from Karnataka, a debt-ridden sugarcane farmer from Pandavapura taluk in Mandya district committed suicide by setting his standing crop on fire and then jumping into it. According to villagers, Ninge Gowda, a marginal farmer, was upset over the crash in sugarcane prices and harassment from money lenders. The farmer could not get a good price of his produce as the Pandavapura sugar factory starts crushing only by the end of July. Gowda had nothing to fall back on to feed his wife, disabled son and his daughter-in-law, and had borrowed around Rs 1.6 lakh on interest. The farmers, subsequently, demanding suitable compensation, staged a protest demonstration on Srirangapatna-Bidar Highway in Srirangapatna. The police are awaiting the autopsy report to ascertain the cause of the farmer’s death. Meanwhile, state Agriculture Minister Krishna Byre Gowda said since the Congress government came to power in the state, it had spent more than rupees 15 billion directly and indirectly to help sugarcane growers.
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