A 63-year-old rickshaw-puller from North 24 Parganas is fighting for his life after allegedly attempting suicide out of fear linked to the ongoing Special Intensive Review (SIR) of electoral rolls, police said on Thursday.
Police said Ashok Sardar jumped onto the railway tracks near the CCR Bridge at Belgharia on Wednesday night.
“Sardar was admitted to RG Kar Hospital in a critical condition. One of his limbs had to be amputated. His condition remains extremely serious,” a senior officer of Kolkata Police said.
According to his family, Sardar had been distressed after discovering that he and his wife were unable to find their names in the 2002 voters’ list.
“Ever since learning this, he had been panicking, unable to understand what to do or where to go. The family claims this fear led to the incident,” the officer said.
His daughter, Chaitali Sarkar, said her father had been increasingly anxious since the SIR process began.
“For days, father kept saying he had no documents. He feared he might be thrown out of the country. That fear may have driven him to do this,” she said.
Sardar, a resident of Prafullanagar Low Land under Kamarhati Municipality, had reportedly been living in persistent fear after hearing about the distribution of forms and document requirements under the SIR exercise.
Over the past several weeks, more than a dozen deaths — including two booth-level officers — have been reported across districts such as North 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, Birbhum and Nadia, allegedly triggered by panic surrounding the SIR process.
In contrast, officials noted that the SIR exercise concluded smoothly in Bihar without any such fatalities.
West Bengal and Kerala are among 12 states and Union Territories where enumeration forms are currently being distributed as part of the review.
Political leaders have highlighted that the earlier SIR exercise conducted over two decades ago had no link to citizenship and did not involve distributing enumeration forms. That process was challenged in the Supreme Court after it was launched in Bihar.
The matter remains pending before the Supreme Court, which has since issued several directions to the Election Commission, including allowing the use of the Aadhaar card as a document for identity verification.