#Demonitisation: J&K reports its first death, a minor

1:58 pm November 20, 2016

KL News Network

SRINAGAR

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J&K that had insulated itself from the rest of India on demonetization crisis has finally opened its account on the currency-killing front. A Bakerwal boy was killed because his parents could not hire a vehicle for lack of currency notes acceptable to the driver.

The eight year old boy was identified as Haroon Fhamrah son Muneer Hussain, a Bakerwal resident of Bhagoon in Samba, Greater Kashmir that broke the news on Sunday detailed.

“The man carried his 8-year-old son on his shoulders for the whole night as he took the journey towards Mansar from his native village,” the newspaper said. “After covering 20 kms on foot, he found a cab but its driver refused to take a banned note as fare.”

Muneer had failed in exchanging the banned currency note at a bank due to huge rush of customers. “Haroon had been visiting a bank for the past three days since his son fell ill, but could not exchange his old currency notes due to rush of customers there,” villagers told the newspaper. “On late Friday evening, the health of his son deteriorated further and he decided to take him to a clinic in Mansar town. He walked all the way and reached village Khoon, 20 kms from his village, at midnight, where he was hopeful to get some vehicle. But, the driver of the only van he saw had refused to accept old currency note as fare, according to villagers.”

Finally, they reached Mansar at 4.30 am, but as soon as he entered the clinic, the doctors there pronounced his son as dead. Later, police helped him drive the corpse and the devastated father home.

J&K was considered literally insulated from the crisis that was the main disorder in the mainland India. It was partly because of the cultural issues in most of the state and hyper-active banking set-up that worked quickly. Interestingly, most of the state was in a state of economic dormancy as markets were reeling under more than four months of unrest. Within two days, banks across the state accepted bulk of demonitised twin currency notes and then started dispensing new notes – mostly of 100s and Rs 2000 denominations. J&K Bank, the main bank in the state played a key role in quick transition.

Interestingly part of the decision on demonitising was linked to Kashmir by way of ‘terror funding’. But an official report said only 0.05 percent of the currency notes – not more than Rs 800 crore – goes into “terror funding”. Besides, it said Rs 400 core is counterfeit at any point of time. The same report said not more than Rs 30 crore can be linked to Kashmir.

But the drastic measure is impacting the mainland India quite seriously. Banks still have lone lines of clients waiting for new currency notes so that they could continue with their life. The latest victim is a deputy manager of State Bank of India, in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, S.K. Sheriff (46), who collapsed while working. His bank had been locked by clients for they lacked cash and he was working for many hours and eventually died in a hospital.

SLBC Meeting being presided by Dr Haseeb A Drabu and chaired by RBI governor.

Already, the political parties, opposed to the move, have documented 55 deaths which are directly linked to the demonitising deaths. These cases detail how people died despite have enough and adequate liquidity. Here is the list:

Virender Basoya, a 25-year-old businessman in Delhi, hanged himself to a ceiling fan and died. His wife said he was depressed as he had not been able to exchange Rs 12 lakh worth of old currency notes, money he had received as payments. (Indian Express)
In Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh, 70-year-old Ratna Pillai died waiting in a bank queue. Distressed over the long queue, he approached the bank manager, and collapsed. (The Hindu)
Rajesh Kumar, a 56-year-old bank manager in Haryana’s Rohtak district, died after working three days and nights at his co-operative bank, handling large crowds. When the security guard opened the door, Kumar was found dead. (Hindustan Times)
70-year-old Ishteyak Ahmad died waiting in a bank queue in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh. (Times of India)
Jagdish Panwar, a 62-year-old tea seller in Rajasthan’s Sikar district, died of heart attack as he was stressed over not having cash for his daughter’s wedding. The Sikar administration says local banks haven’t received cash from the Reserve Bank of India for two days. (Indian Express)
Sheik Basheer, 35, an auto-driver in Nizamabad district of Telangana, immolated himself and died because a financier refused to accept his old currency notes as loan repayment for his vehicle. (IANS)
Mohammad Shahzad, a manual labourer, died waiting in a bank queue in Meerut. It was the fourth consecutive day he was standing in the queue to try and exchange his currency notes. (The Hindu)
In Bhind district of Madhya Pradesh, an ex-serviceman, Babulal Valmiki, 70, collapsed just 100 metres away from the bank. He was declared dead at the hospital. He had gone to exchange old currency notes worth Rs 12,000. (The Weekend Leader)
“It was a long queue and he was said to have been waiting for hours,” said a government official on the death of a septuagenarian, Ram Chandra Paswan who died in a bank queue in Palamu, Jharkhand. (Indian Express)
In Ballia, Uttar Pradesh, Suresh Sonar died of a heart attack after failing to exchange currency notes despite spending hours at the bank. His family said he was distressed as money was needed for his daughter’s tilak ceremony. (Press Trust of India)
In rural Pune, a bank peon, Tukaram Tanpure, 53, died of a massive heart attack. His colleagues said he, like everyone else, was stressed handling large crowds and working 12 hours a day. (Hindustan Times)
In Maharashtra’s Nanded district, Digambar Kasbe, 60, died after collapsing in a bank queue. He had been standing for hours. (Hindustan Times)
Lavkush, 20, died in Jharkhand’s Bokaro district because of the economic stress caused by demonetisation. His daily wager father had been unable to get work because of demonetisation. (IANS)
When Lavkush’s grandmother Lakshmi, 70, heard of her grandson’s death, she died of shock. (IANS)
In Siddipet district of Telangana, Balaiah, a 45-year-old farmer, died after he mixed pesticide in his food. He had been trying to sell his agricultural land but was stressed because its price came down from Rs 6-7 lakh per acre to Rs 2-3 lakh after demonetisation. He was under debt. (Press Trust of India)
In the incident in Siddepet above, Balaiah’s 65-year-old father Galaiah also died. Balaiah’s wife and son are in hospital. (Press Trust of India)
Saud Ur Rehman, 48, died in a bank queue in old Delhi after waiting for hours. It was his second day of trying to exchange old notes. “He would reach the branch around 5 am and wait for hours in queue, but by the time his turn would come, either the bank went out of cash or the counters closed,” said a family member. (Press Trust of India)
Khaliq Hasan, 56, collapsed and died in a bank queue in Bareilly. His family members said he was stressed due to demonetisation. (Press Trust of India)
Deepak Shah, 60, died after collapsing in a bank queue in Mumbai. (Indian Express)
Sanjay Prajapat, 23, collapsed and died after rushing home to fetch his father’s Aadhaar card so he could exchange old notes at the bank. (HuffPost India)
Vijaya Lakshmi, 70, died in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh as she entered a bank to exchange her Rs 500 notes. (The Hans)
Dharani Kanta Bhowmik, a 56-year-old teacher in West Bengal’s Cooch Behar district, died after queuing up for three consecutive days to exchange currency notes. (Ananda Bazaar Patrika)
Four days before his daughter’s wedding, Sukhdev Singh died of heart attack in Tarn Taran, Punjab. Surjit Kaur, wife of the deceased, said, “Nobody was accepting the money we had saved for daughter’s marriage. My husband was tense due to this. He had complained of chest pain and died.” (Indian Express)
Sumit, the 17-year-old son of a BSF jawan in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, committed suicide as his mother won’t give him small denomination notes. (Press Trust of India)
A 2-year-old unwell child died in Sambalpur, Odisha, as an autorickshaw drivers refused to take the family to the hospital for want of smaller denomination notes. The family had now-illegal 500 rupee notes. (Report Odisha)
Lakshminarayana, 75, collapsed and died while waiting in a long queue for over two hours at an Andhra Bank branch Secunderabad, Telangana. He had gone to deposit Rs 1.7 lakh. The bank didn’t have a separate queue for senior citizens. (IANS)
In Aurangabad, Bihar, an elderly man, Surendra Sharma, died while waiting in a bank queue. (Daudnagar)
Halke Lodhi, a farmer in Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh, committed suicide as he didn’t have money to buy fertiliser and seeds in time for the Rabi sowing season. “Had he got money from the bank in exchange of his old notes, he would not have committed suicide,” said his relative Bhupendra Lodhi. (Hindustan Times)
Aziz Ansari, a 60-year-old factor worker in Meerut, died of a heart attack in a bank. It was his third day of trying to exchange currency notes. (Times of India)
Raghunath Verma, a 70-year-old retired school teacher in Jalaun, eastern Uttar Pradesh, died at a bank queue. His son Ravi said, “We needed ₹2 lakh for the marriage expenses. My father went to the bank for three days. He had spoken to the bank manager many times asking him to help with the withdrawal and exchange. The manager did not listen to him. He even fell on the manager’s feet on Saturday.” (Hindustan Times)
In the Bulandshahr (west UP) branch of Kailash hospital, owned by union culture and tourism minister Mahesh Sharma, a child died because the parents had only old currency notes. The hospital wanted them to deposit an advance of Rs 10,000 for admission. The hospital has denied the charge. (One India)
Rizwana, a 24-year-old woman in north-east Delhi hanged herself to the ceiling fan with her dupatta as she was upset about not being able to exchange currency for three days. (Indian Express)
In Surat, Gujarat, a 50-year-old mother of two committed suicide because she wasn’t able to buy ration to feed her family. The shops refused to accept old currency notes. (Times of India)
Shabana, a 20-year-old woman in Shamli (west UP) committed suicide. Her brother, returning home after failing to exchange currency at the bank, found her hanging from the ceiling fan. (India Samvad)
In Chikballapur district of Karnataka, a 40-year-old woman committed suicide because Rs 15,000 that she had gone to the bank to exchange got lost or stolen. She had hidden the money from her alcoholic husband. (New Indian Express)
In Raigarh, Chhattisgarh, a 45-year-old farmer was upset at not being able to exchange Rs 3,000 at the bank for three consecutive days. He needed to send money to his stranded children in Tamil Nadu. He came home and committed suicide. (Press Trust of India)
In Limbdi town of Surendranagar district in Gujarat, a 69-year-old collapsed and died of heart attack waiting in a queue to exchange currency notes at a Bank of India branch. (Press Trust of India)
An elderly woman living by herself in Kanpur died while counting her notes. Police found Rs 2.69 lakh worth of old currency notes alongside her body. (Dainik Bhaskar)
Also in Kanpur, a young man died of heart attack while watching Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of demonetisation. The man had received Rs 70 lakhs in advance for selling his land just the previous day. He had been trying to sell his land for months. (ABP News)
In Mumbai, a hospital refused to admit an ill newborn because the parents didn’t have legal tender. The child died. The government has allowed the use of old currency notes only in government-run hospitals. (Mumbai Mirror)
Komali, an 18-month-old baby died in Vizag as the parents didn’t have money to buy medicines. The private hospital refused to accept old currency notes of Rs 500 or 1,000. (Times of India)
Doctors in Mainpuri in Uttar Pradesh stopped treating one year old Kush, suffering from high fever, after his parents ran out of 100 rupee notes. The parents brought him home, where he soon died, his father’s 500 rupee notes now worthless. (Times of India)
In Pali district of Rajasthan, the ambulance wouldn’t take Champalal Meghwal’s new born to hospital as he only had Rs 500 and 1,000 notes. By the time Meghwal arranged 100 rupee notes, the child had died. (Indian Express)
In Kushinagar district of Uttar Pradesh, a washerwoman came to know of demonetisation only when she reached a bank to deposit two 1,000 rupee notes she had saved. When told these were no longer legal tender, she died of shock. (Hindustan Times)
Kandukuri Vinoda, 55, a home-maker in Mahbubabad district of Telangana, committed suicide because she thought her cash savings of Rs 54 lakh were now worthless. She had earned the cash by selling land to pay for her husband’s treatment, daughter’s dowry and buy a smaller piece of land. (Hindustan Times)
In Howrah, West Bengal, a man tense over demonetisation, murdered his wife Madhu Tiwary because she returned empty-handed from the ATM. He felt she should have waited longer in the queue. (Times of India)
In Kaimur district of Bihar, 45-year-old Ram Awadh Sah died of a massive heart attack as he feared his daughter’s would-be in-laws may no longer accept his old currency notes in dowry. He had saved up Rs 35,000. (India Today)
In Thalassery, Kerala, 45-year-old KK Unni went to deposit Rs 5 lakh for the second day, after being unsuccessful on the first. He fell from the second floor while filling the deposit slip and died. An employee of the state electricity board, the man had taken the money as loan just the previous day. Local media reports said he was disturbed as he had not been able to change the currency notes. (New Indian Express)
Vishwas Vartak, 72, died of a massive heart attack while waiting to deposit old currency notes at a bank in Mumbai. (Hindustan Times)
Barkat Sheikh, a 47-year-old farmer had a heart attack waiting to exchange old currency notes in Tarapur in Gujarat. He needed money to pay farm labour. (Press Trust of India)
In Alappuzha, Kerala, 75-year-old Karthikeyan collapsed before a bank and died. He had been waiting for an hour in the queue. (The News Minute)
In Udupi in Karnataka, Gopala Shetty, a 96-year-old man died waiting in a long queue at the bank, and the bank hadn’t even opened yet. (Times of India)
69-year-old Vinay Kumar Pandey, a retired BSNL employee, died waiting in a queue at the bank to exchange currency notes in Sagar, Madhya Pradesh. (Press Trust of India)
In Bhopal, a State Bank of India cashier died of heart attack. Bank employees have been putting in extra hours and handling large queues. (Hindustan Times)
A businessman in Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh, felt chest pain soon after watching Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 8 November announcement of demonetisation. He died before the doctor could arrive. (Financial Express)