Assam: Haflong Labourer, Unable to Buy Fish for Daughter amid Lockdown, Commits Suicide

Haflong, April 27, 2020:

"He probably committed suicide because of problems in the household. For long, he has been unable to work, although Iftar is there. He only got paid from his labour work, otherwise not. We got only a little relief yesterday", says Afsima Begum, the wife of an unfortunate dailywage worker from Dima Hasao in Assam, who felt compelled to take his own life after seeing the plight of his young daughter.

Nobi Hussian, a 27-year-old daily wage labourer hailing from Altaf Tilla in Lower Haflong is only one among scores of hand-to-mouth labourers feeling the sting of the lockdown called by the Government to contain of the coronavirus. Yesterday, Hussain, who had not earned any wages amid the lockdown, was stricken by grief when his young daughter asked him for money to buy fish with.

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The sum of Rs 100 that was required to make the purchase might have seemed like an exorbitant sum to the Assam worker, for he ended up hanging himself with a red saree. Before he took his life, though, he must have suffered the pain and humiliation of being unable to provide for his child.

The house of the labourer now bears a deserted look. His corpse has been lain on a bed, where he lies, as if in deep slumber. In the ramshackle hut, where the family resides, most other things remain untouched, including the wife's saree that he wound around his neck to throttle himself with.

His neighbour, Atikur Rahman Choudhury, breaking down into tears, said that Hussain was pained because he was unable to feed his child to her heart's content. "I was called by his wife. She had lain him on a chair. As soon as I checked his pulse, I knew he was dead. Then, his wife told me that his daughter had seen fish worth Rs 100 and demanded it."

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Ramzan, usually a month of joy for Muslims, turned sour for the young labourer, and due to his misfortune, he was unable to afford the luxury of purchasing eatables. "We have to eat certain things on Ramzan; but for him (Hussain) there was nothing to eat, there was nothing to feed the kids with. He must have felt sad then, and he asked everyone to vacate the room. The wife was preparing the iftar, but when she called him, he was hanging from the ceiling", Choudhury said.

Across the nation, the plight of the hand-to-mouth labourers like Hussain has come to the fore and the class divide has become starker. With the rich and middle classes shutting themselves in out of fear for the corona, the poor have largely been left to fend for themselves amid the lockdown. Several of these labourers, like Hussain, have embraced the arms of death rather than having to face the struggle of going on.

With inputs from Mahmadul Hassan Barbhuiya

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