Unable to feed her five children, Manisha Gatkal set her self on fire on Raksha Bandhan
Unemployed and unable to feed her five children anymore, a 40-year-old woman farmer set herself on fire in Maharashtra's drought-hit Marathwada region, which chief minister Devendra Fadnavis toured extensively last week.
Manisha Gatkal doused herself with kerosene and set herself afire on a Saturday, as the country celebrated Rakshabandhan, inside her home in Ambi village of Osmanabad district, after sending her young children outside.
A week later, the strong smell of the kerosene she used to kill herself still hung low in the Gatkal home. On the floor, two stale chapatis, the only food in the stark home when she died, lay uneaten on an aluminum plate.
All food containers in the house were empty: there was no rice or flour or oil. The children, the youngest about three years old, huddled outside around their father, barely able to comprehend the massive tragedy.
"We are really very poor. The harvest failed because of the drought. There was no food. I had no work... When I got some work I went out. She locked the door and killed herself," said Ms Gatkal's husband, Laxman.
It is so poor that unlike other cases of suicide in this region, where farmers have killed themselves in desperation after being unable to pay back loans, the Gatkal family could not even afford a loan.
"Had he got work under MNREGA, they would have had money and she wouldn't have committed suicide," said Laxman's brother Balasahab. In Ambi, a village on the border of two districts, people say there is no work even under government schemes like MNREGA, which guarantee employment.
Last week, in his tour of the area, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that many meetings with farmers, that he had sanctioned additional work under these schemes.
The opposition has criticised his visit as ineffective and his assurances as inadequate.
This is the third straight year of drought in Marathwada, where 628 farmers have committed suicide in 2015. Last year, 574 farmers had killed themselves in the region.