Lawyer Allegedly Dies By Suicide At Farmers' Protest, Note Mentions PM

A lawyer from Punjab allegedly died by suicide on Sunday a few kilometres from the site of a farmers' protest on the outskirts of Delhi.

Amarjit Singh from Jalalabad in Punjab's Fazilka district was found on the Tikri border after reportedly consuming poison and was taken to a hospital in Rohtak where doctors declared him dead on arrival, the police said.

In a purported suicide note, Amarjit Singh said he was "sacrificing his life" in support of the farmers' agitation against the centre's new farm laws so that the government is compelled to listen to the voice of the people.

He wrote that common people like farmers and labourers are feeling "defrauded" by the three "black" agricultural laws and asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to "listen to the voice of the people".

The police said they are verifying the authenticity of the suicide note, dated December 18.

"We have informed the relatives of the deceased and once they reach here, their statements will be recorded and further proceedings will be conducted," a police officer from Haryana's Jhajjar district told news agency PTI, adding that they were informed about the suicide by the hospital authorities.

Earlier, at least two suicides have been linked to the farmers' stir, underway at various border points of Delhi for over a month now.

A 65-year-old Sikh preacher, Sant Ram Singh, allegedly died by suicide near the Singhu border protest site earlier this month claiming that he was "unable to bear the pain of the farmers".

A few days later, a 22-year-old farmer died by suicide in Punjab's Bathinda after returning from a protest site near the Delhi border.

Thousands of farmers from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and some other states have been protesting at various border points of Delhi against the three agricultural laws adopted in September.

Billed as long-awaited reforms in the agriculture sector, the central government has said they will remove the middlemen and allow farmers more options to sell their produce.

The protesting farmers, however, fear that the new laws would eliminate the system of minimum support price and do away with the mandi system, leaving them at the mercy of big corporates.