A 56-year-old woman in Madhya Balabhut, a village in the Tufanganj subdivision of Cooch Behar, was found hanging at home on Tuesday evening, her family claiming she was distressed over a minor discrepancy in her identity documents amid the special intensive revision (SIR) process.
According to deceased Hachana Bibi's kin, she had been worried for the past few weeks as her Aadhaar card listed her name as “Hachana Bibi” while her voter card spelled it as “Hachana Ribi”, differing by just one alphabet.
The family alleged that she feared this mismatch might create problems during SIR verification.
On Tuesday evening, the body of the woman was discovered hanging at home. It was later taken to the Cooch Behar MJN Medical College & Hospital for a post-mortem.
Trinamool Congress leaders termed the death a fallout of “panic and misinformation”.
“She took the drastic step out of fear because of SIR,” Trinamool district president Abhijit Deb Bhowmik said. “She was anxious because her surname in her Aadhaar and voter cards did not match.”
Bajle Haque, one of her relatives, claimed: “She feared she might be dropped as a voter if the name was not corrected.”
Local BJP leaders rejected Trinamool's accusation, arguing that the state’s “mismanagement” of identity documents and administrative inefficiency were to blame.
“The state government itself created confusion among citizens by failing to maintain proper records over the years,” said a BJP leader.