A week has passed since Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to ban old ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes, the death toll has reached 33. Citizens across the country have been inconvenienced since the announcement.
Punjab
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.”
Uttar Pradesh
– Sumit, a 17 year old son of a BSF jawan in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, committed suicide as his mother won’t give him small denomination notes.
– 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.
– 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.
Telangana
– 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 ₹1.7 lakh. The bank didn’t have a separate queue for senior citizens.
– Kandukuri Vinoda, 55, a home-maker in Mahubabad 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.
Madhya Pradesh
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.
Gujarat
– 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.
– 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.
