Jamshedpur, Aug. 10: If Sushant Das (34) had heard the deputy commissioner or approached his office, he would not have attempted to commit suicide after killing his children.

The man is still alive though two of the children have died, while the remaining two are struggling for their lives. But, while Das now faces the prospect of being tried for both murder and suicide, the East Singhbhum deputy commissioner, Nitin Madan Kulkarni, had a stern and stark message for him.

There are many employment assurance schemes, the DC declared, and ?there is no need for anyone to end his life due to poverty?. In this particular case too, he added, if the victim had approached the administration for help, ?we would have done everything possible to provide employment.?

Lying in the emergency ward of the MGM college hospital today, Das was full of remorse and cursed the moment on Tuesday when he decided to poison the entire family while his wife, Lakshmi, was away working as a manual labourer.

A failed harvest in 2002-03 had forced him to call his family over in January 2003. But his troubles began in September 2004 when he was thrown out of his job after sustaining a multiple fracture on his arm. His job involved lifting heavy weights and since he could no longer do this, he was out of his regular work.

His wife started working as a labourer for a civil construction company and earned Rs 1,800 at the end of the month after back-breaking work. Rupees 250 out of it had to be paid as rent for the solitary room the family occupied. The balance was clearly insufficient to feed six mouths, he recalled.

As the situation worsened, he mumbled, his wife began to lose her cool. She would taunt him for not being able to earn and ?in the last few months, she had started insulting me in front of even strangers,? he said.

It was then that he contemplated committing suicide. Last week he went back to his village Hata, barely 20 kilometres from here, and surreptitiously brought back some chemicals that a friend-farmer had bought for spraying in his paddy field.

?Look at my luck,? Das wailed. ?I could not even die while two of my innocent children are no more.?

While the police have lodged an FIR on the basis of his wife, Lakshmi (30) does not want him to be punished. Sushant, she claimed, was a loving father and wanted the best for his children. He had momentarily lost his balance and poisoned them out of frustration, she pleaded. The police, she hoped, would let her husband off.

Meanwhile, the condition of three-year-old Babita and 12-year-old Premlal continued to be serious and they are under observation in the hospital.