Kashinagar: A farmer died under mysterious circumstances at Khurigaon village under this block in Gajapati district Tuesday.
B Gopal Rao collapsed at his farmland and died while picking up a bale of blighted paddy crop damaged in pest attack. Family members rushed him to Kashinagar community health centre where doctors pronounced him brought dead.
Family members, however, claimed Gopal could not stand the damage done to his crop by pests and was depressed, which ultimately led to his death.
Gopal had cultivated paddy in a four-acre farmland but suffered crop loss after brown planthopper, a kind of pest, invaded his paddy field. Revenue and agriculture officials, during a field survey of his farmland and that of other farmers of the area, had acknowledged that the crop damage due to pest attack.
Gopal visited the farmland with his family and harvested whatever crop survived the pest onslaught. He was tying the paddy into bundles when he collapsed. Villagers demanded a probe into the incident and compensation for the bereaved family. PNN