The Kerala Police have formed a special team to investigate the suspected suicide of SNDP Yogam office-bearer K.K. Mahesan. Inspector General Harshita Attaluri will head the probe team.
Mahesan, a long-time aide and close confidant of the general secretary of the organisation, Vellappally Natesan, was found dead hanging in the local office of the SNDP Yogam in Alappuzha last month.
‘Scapegoating him’
His relatives had alleged that Mr. Natesan had abetted the suicide of Mahesan by attempting to scapegoat him in the microfinance cheating case.
The SNDP Yogam had raised bank loans and used government grant to extend microcredit to its members. However, some of its office-bearers did not remit the mortgage payments collected from the beneficiaries in the banks.
Faced with defaults amounting to crores of rupees, the banks sent revenue recovery notices to the loanees, most of them women from indigent families.
Victims’ plea
Thousands of worried women, believing they were cheated, approached the police against the SNDP office-bearers, resulting in scores of cheating cases against the Yogam across Kerala. Mahesan’s relatives had also expressed dissatisfaction with the inquiry conducted by the local police.
They demanded that the police bring Mr. Natesan’s son and SNDP Yogam vice president Thushar Vellappally under the ambit of the abetment of suicide probe. Mr. Thushar had risked the anger of Mahesan’s relatives by suggesting that the suicide victim had benefitted from the microcredit fraud.
Mahesan’s death also led to protests against Mr. Natesan and renewed demands for his resignation by factions opposed to him in the SNDP Yogam.
