The father of an 11-year-old committed suicide in their rented apartment in Patuli on the southeastern fringes of Kolkata on Wednesday morning, apparently unable to bear the stress of an uncertain income since he lost his permanent job during the lockdown last year, police said.
Amit Jyoti Banerjee, 53, used to work in a managerial post at a consultancy firm whose office is in Dalhousie in central Kolkata.
Banerjee lost his job during the lockdown last year and failed to get a permanent job thereafter, his family has told the police.
Officers at Patuli police station received a call on Wednesday morning about “an incident” in the Green View area of Patuli.
On reaching the spot, officers found residents of the neighbourhood knocking on the main door on the ground floor of a three-storey building.
As there was no response for quite some time, the police broke open the door and found Banerjee hanging from the ceiling of his room.
He was taken to Baghajatin State General Hospital, where he was declared dead.
“His wife Joyee and their son were not at home. They had gone to Joyee’s parents’ home to celebrate Bhaiphonta and were yet to return. They came back after hearing about the incident,” said an officer.
The landlady — Luna Sarkar — told the police that the family had been staying in the building for six years.
Banerjee is one among many in the city who have killed themselves after losing their jobs because of the financial slowdown, exacerbated by the pandemic.
His family is said to have told the police that Banerjee used to remain depressed as he was unable to get a job that would fetch him a permanent income.
His wife is a homemaker and their son is in school.
Last month, on Saptami, a 51-year-old father — Debi Prasad Aich — had ended his life in Golf Green in south Kolkata as he was unable to repay an education loan for his daughter with his faltering business.
A man who had left his job as a fitter in a tool manufacturing company in 2019 to start his own business had slit his throat inside his workshop in Haridevpur in southwest Kolkata as he suffered huge losses in his business.
Earlier this year, a homemaker had committed suicide in her Sarsuna house in southwest Kolkata as she was unable to bear the stress of her son’s unemployment and lamented the fact that her husband’s income was less than their rent in the housing complex where they were staying.
In June this year, a 38-year-old man who lost his job last year amidst the pandemic committed suicide, apparently unable to sustain his family with his income from supplying polythene bags to small shops.
Bhaskar Roy, a resident of Behala in southwest Kolkata, was a former sales executive of a pharmaceutical company. He is survived by his wife and two children. The family had been living with his in-laws as he could not afford a separate dwelling. The couple’s son is 7 and daughter 3.
