Anatomy of a suicide
Sarita's husband, M Mahendra Reddy, drank monocrotophos on May 24, 2004. He owned 1.2 hectare (ha) and taken another 2.4 ha on a two-year lease at Rs 12,500 per ha. He dug two borewells deeper than 75 metre in his fields in Kondapur village of Chiyurumamidi mandal, Karimnagar district. The second well, which he shared with his brother, still yields water. Sarita's father says Mahendra spent up to Rs 40,000 on pesticides. "He would have grown paddy, but water this year was inadequate. So he grew cotton,' says Sarita's brother. He had also borrowed Rs 1,00,000 for a poultry business that failed, Rs 60,000 from a friend's wife and another Rs 25,000 from Radhakrishna Finance, a company in Husnabad, at a rate of 36 per cent interest per year. He was hoping for a good return on his cotton crop