Bengal ITI teacher commits suicide over frequent salary cuts

A part-time teacher of an Industrial Training Institute (ITI) in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri district is suspected to have committed suicide allegedly due to frequent salary cuts, police said on Friday. Twenty eight-year-old Abhrajyoti Biswas, a resident of Siliguri, was found hanging in one of the rooms of the ITI on Thursday, a police officer said.

Colleagues of Biswas have alleged that he was depressed over the frequent slashing of his salary by ITI Principal Ranbir Singh over minor pretexts, he said. The ITI teachers staged a demonstration inside the principal's office after the body of Biswas was found and have decided to boycott classes on Friday in protest against their colleague's death, sources said.

The deceased's colleagues have claimed that to avoid salary cut, despite suffering from typhoid, Biswas had recently attended work for several days carrying bottles of saline injected to his arm, the officer said.

One of his colleagues, Subhashree Moitra, said that a day before his death, Biswas had expressed to her about his difficulties in running a family comprising an aged mother and a brother with what remains of his meagre salary after frequent cuts, the officer said.

In the suicide note he left behind for his mother, Biswas wrote that he has no debts, he added.