On day for senior citizens, rush kills four more people

NEW DELHI: At least four more people died across the country on Saturday, allegedly due to exhaustion after standing several hours to exchange banned banknotes as millions continued to grapple with a cash crunch 11 days after the shock decision.

The government says the move to demonetise the old `500 and `1000 notes was aimed at sucking out illicit cash. Officials said the Income Tax department has already started issuing hundreds of notices seeking source of funds from individuals and firms who have deposited huge amounts of cash in banks using the scrapped currency notes.

Though there is no official confirmation, opposition parties are linking the death of about 50 people to the demonetisation that has led to snaking queues in banks and cash-dispensing machines with people lining up late into the night to withdraw cash or exchange the old notes.

Two of the deaths were reported from Uttar Pradesh – in Aligarh and Harodi. Another man died in Rajasthan’s Junjhunu district while a woman was brought dead to a hospital in Haryana’s Karnal. A doctor said she may have suffocated in the crowded queue outside a bank.

Since the government’s announcement on November 8, banks have worked without a break, allowing customers of even other banks to exchange the old notes. The long queues in ATMs, however, remained in many parts of the country including Mumbai.

In Andhra Pradesh’s Paderu town, an angry policeman allegedly damaged two ATMs which had run out of cash. Bank officials said the cop was caught on CCTV kicking the machines repeatedly. The government has struggled to fill the country’s more than two lakh ATMs as a bumpy execution of the scheme has left the poor, small traders, farmers and women left with little cash in hand to even meet daily expenses.

There were also reports of distribution of new banknotes with faulty prints. A south Delhi resident, Imtiaz Alam, was given Rs 10 coins weighing about 15 kgs when he withdrew Rs 20,000 from the Jamia Cooperative bank.

Amid the chaos, a bank manager in Madhya Pradesh’s Khandwa went to a hospital to hand over Rs 25,000 to a retired railway official who suffered a broken hip after a fall on Friday.