Belgaum, November 27: A Sugarcane grower participating in a protest meeting to demand remunerative prices and payment of dues to farmers, committed suicide by taking poison at the protest site on Wednesday, triggering tension in this town, where winter session of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly is being held.
The farmer, aged around 60 years, was identified as Vittal Arabhavi of Kankanwadi village in Raibag taluk of Belgaum district.
The farmer, it was said, was facing acute financial crisis after a sugar factory failed to pay him money for supply of 120 tonnes of cane he supplied last year. He had taken on lease five acres of land to grow sugarcane and was under pressure to pay money to the landlord.
He had come to the protest site, in front of Suvarna Soudha, where the winter session of the assembly is being held. He addressed the protestors for sometime and was prevented as he turned abusive using objectionable language against the Government and the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
He later sat along with the other protestors but took out two bottles of pesticide and consumed. Others who noticed it rushed him to Gopal Jina Gouda Bhartesh Homoepathy Medical College Hospital, where he died while being treated.
The sugarcane farmers were demanding that the government declare sugarcane prices under the State Advised Price Act from Monday coinciding with the commencement of the winter session of the Assembly.
