“What will be our fate? How are you going to take care of us when the entire village is going to get submerged? How are you going to get our children married?” – these were the questions that Bharathi, wife of Nayini Karunakar, reportedly asked him on May 31. Like many others in Erravalli village of Kondapaka mandal of Medak district, Karunakar had no answer to her questions. Unable to do so, Karunakar committed suicide by self-immolation the same night.

First, he was shifted to a hospital at Gajwel and then to Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad. He breathed his last in the wee hours of Monday.

Erravalli is one of the villages that would get submerged with the proposed construction of Komuravelli Mallannasagar reservoir with a capacity of 50 tmcft. According to N. Bhaskar, brother of Karunakar, both of them were cultivating about four acres of land. They own one acre each and another acre of their father Yadagiri and one more acre of their aunt.

“Once the land was handed over to the government, we could not purchase similar land outside the village and were not sure how to plan our future. This was what my sister-in-law asked Karunakar. He could not answer the questions, and before our eyes only he immolated himself,” said Mr. Bhaskar.

Karunakar is survived by his wife and two daughters – four-year-old Teja and seven-year-old Kavya.

“The heated argument between the wife and the husband led to this situation. At many families, this has become a routine as the future seems bleak,” said Erravalli vice-president K. Shiva Kumar.

He refuted the allegation that family disputes led to Karunakar’s suicide, stating that many of the villagers do have toddy in the evenings after work, but they cannot be branded habitual drinkers.

However, when contacted, Kuknoorpally Sub-Inspector V. Ramakrishna Reddy said that the suicide was due to a family dispute and Yadagiri, father of the deceased, mentioned the same in his complaint to the police on May 31

Erravalli will get submerged with the construction of Mallannasagar reservoir