A Right to Information (RTI) query has revealed that there were 122 farmer and farm-related suicides in West Bengal’s Paschim Medinipur district in 2021. The West Bengal government has for the past several years maintained in public forums and the State Assembly that there has not been a single farmer and farm-related suicide in the State.
In response to a query by RTI activist Biswanath Goswami on August 27, the State Public Information Officer & Deputy Superintendent of Police (D&T), Paschim Medinipur, provided the details of farmer and farm-related suicides collected from 23 police stations across the district.
Only a few days ago, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) came out with two reports: ‘Crime In India’, 2021 and Accidental Deaths and Suicides (ADSI) in India, 2021. According to the NCRB findings, West Bengal recorded 13,500 suicides in the year 2021, which is the fourth highest in the country. However, the number of deaths due to suicides by farmers or people engaged in agricultural activities has been declared zero..
