Midnapore, May 24: Housewife Sumati Jana underlined with her blood the urgency of breaking the Nandigram stalemate hours before the politicians met at Mahajati Sadan over tea, cashew nuts and sandesh.

The 39-year-old wife of a CPM supporter died around 2 am in a hospital today after drinking a bottle of pesticide yesterday morning. Neighbours and her husband said she had been driven to suicide by repeated threats from activists of the Trinamul Congress-led Bhoomi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee.

Sumati had been living alone in the Trinamul-dominated Kanangochak village, about 180 km from Calcutta, since the March 14 massacre. Her husband Ajoy had taken shelter in the Baharganj CPM camp in Khejuri, but Sumati refused to abandon her home.

When the intimidation started, neighbours said, she sent her 13-year-old son Raju out of harm’s way. “She took him out of the nearby Gokulnagar High School and got him admitted to Class VII at Kalagachia Jagadish Vidyapith in Khejuri, a CPM stronghold,” Dijen Jana said.

At home, Sumati continued to face “regular harassment and threats” from Pratirodh Committee supporters, Ajoy’s police complaint says.

“We have started a case on the basis of the FIR,” said officer in charge of Khejuri police station Bidhan Bhattacharya.

“Only a week ago, they (committee activists) had asked her to pay Rs 20,000 in cash as fine for our association with the CPM,” Ajoy, an out-of-work bakery hand, said today.

Neighbours said Sumati had looked “very tense” the past few weeks. “She would often leave home to avoid the continuous harassment,” the elderly Jana said.

On Monday, police said, Sumati had travelled to her parents’ home at Sonachura, a Trinamul stronghold, and had a fight with elder brother Rash Behari, a Pratirodh Committee activist.

On Tuesday, she went over to Kalagachia to meet her son and the next morning, around 6, she was back. She called out to tell sister-in-law Shyamali, a neighbour, that she was tired and was going to bed.

“We walked across to her home around 10 ’clock and called her, but got no response. We broke the door open. She was writhing, frothing at the mouth. We rushed her to the Kalagachhia block primary health centre but couldn’t save her,” Shyamali said.

Subhendu Adhikari, Trinamul MLA and Pratirodh Committee leader, denied the allegation of harassment.

“Whenever a family suffers some misfortune, the committee is blamed,” he said, suggesting that Sumati might have been “depressed” because her husband had left the village.

Himanshu Das, member of the CPM’s East Midnapore district secretariat, accused committee members of “unleashing terror” on CPM supporters.