A Kerala man died by suicide after failing to pay his son’s engineering college admission fee, despite a High Court order for his wife’s pending salary release.
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KOCHI: In Kerala, a 47-year-old man from Pathanamthitta district died by suicide after being unable to secure funds for his son’s engineering college admission. The incident has shocked the local community and reignited urgent conversations about bureaucratic inefficiency, delayed salaries, and the mounting economic pressure faced by many middle-class families in the state.
V.T. Shijo, a resident of Ranni in Pathanamthitta, around 100 km from Kochi, was found hanging in the Moongampara forest area on Sunday evening. He was a devoted father, husband, and the son of Thyagarajan, a known district committee member of the Karshaka Sangham, a farmers’ organisation.
Shijo’s world, however, had been revolving under the burden of long-standing financial burdens. His son had recently secured admission to an engineering college in Erode, Tamil Nadu, but the family lacked the funds to proceed with enrollment. According to relatives, this became the tipping point for a man already enduring years of economic hardship.
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One of the most disturbing aspects of this case is the salary dispute involving Shijo’s wife, Lekha Raveendran, a school teacher who had reportedly not been paid for over 12 years.
Despite a Kerala High Court order directing the education department to release her dues with retrospective effect, bureaucratic inertia and apathy prevented any real resolution. The school management even reached out to the district education office, but their pleas were met with silence.
The family’s struggles were not unknown; they were documented and discussed, but never resolved. This prolonged inaction from the authorities has now contributed to an irreversible loss.
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Sadly, Shijo’s case is not isolated. Kerala has been witnessing a troubling increase in suicides attributed to financial distress. In 2024, a family of four in Vakkam, Thiruvananthapuram, died by suicide after being overwhelmed by debt. A farmer in Alappuzha also took his life, citing a lack of government support and mounting agricultural debt.
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