Karnataka - Bangalore

Debt drives garment factory owner, family to suicide

Sanjeevini Kumari, T. Venkata Reddy and Divya Durga

BANGALORE: Three members of a family committed suicide unable to withstand the financial crisis in their garment unit. A fourth member survived the self-inflicted poisoning. The family had come to Bangalore 10 years ago from a village near Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh.

Sanjeevini Kumari (49) who owns the garment factory, her husband T. Venkata Reddy, a lab officer in Bureau of Indian Standards, and their daughter Divya Durga (22), an MBBS student, died after eating dinner spiked with a poison powder. Another daughter, Nagaratna Sita (20), a B.Com student, survived and is in hospital traumatised.

A close relative, quoting Sita, said the four while having dinner on Monday night discussed the mounting debts in their garment business. Reddy said there was no way they could come out of their debts and the only solution was suicide. But Sita dissented saying she was hopeful that they could somehow tide over the crisis. But her opinion was ignored and the other two seemed to acquiesce with Reddy’s view.

Reddy sprinkled a powder on the dinner and they rounded off the deadly repast with sweets dusted with the same poison. Sita too ate, albeit reluctantly, threw up and fell unconscious. When she regained consciousness, she found her father, mother and sister unconscious and immediately called her relatives and friends.

The Yeshwantapur police arrived and found the three dead and admitted Sita to a nursing home.

According to the police, the family had invested a large sum of money in their garment unit. The factory, located off the 8th Mile on Bangalore-Tumkur highway, was co-owned by another woman along with Kumari. It opened a year ago. “They were not able to clear their loans and decided to commit suicide,” said Additional Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) M.R. Pujar.

“They were well off and always willing to help others. Their problems began only after Reddy’s wife started the garment factory in partnership with another woman.

They were unable to generate revenues as expected. I realised they were in trouble when Reddy asked me to loan money. I gave some but that was not sufficient,” said a relative who was not willing to be named. The relative also said the family was into money lending. It is not clear whether this played any role in the decision to commit suicide.

Relatives said Reddy owned lands and a house which he wanted to sell. A multinational bank had threatened him with legal action as he had defaulted on payments. “He was worried over the ignominy he would face if the extended family back in Andhra Pradesh got to know about his plight,” another relative said.

Reddy’s daughter Divya Durga was pursuing her second year MBBS course in Siddartha Medical College in Tumkur. She had come home to prepare for examinations scheduled to start on January 5. Her classmates rushed to the M.S. Ramaiah Medical College mortuary on hearing the news. “She was good in studies and a voracious reader of fiction,” said a classmate who was inconsolable.

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