According to a report in The New Indian Express, 47-year-old Chandrakant Biradar, a watermelon farmer, ended his life on Monday evening, burdened by debt and unable to find a way to send his watermelons to Kalaburagi or Latur in Maharashtra, where he used to sell his crop to wholesalers. A case of unnatural death has been registered at the local police station.

Biradar’s suicide is the first in Karnataka due to the current 21-day lockdown that has been put in place by the central government to contain the spread of COVID-19 that has claimed 38 lives in the country so far.

However, reports of farmers dumping their entire produce into open fields to be buried and piles of vegetables lying waste have been emerging across the state.