`56L land deal cash becomes her noose
HYDERABAD: A woman in rustic Telangana committed suicide after being misinformed that the `54.40 lakh cash she had stored in denominations of 1,000 and 500 had become worthless.
Kandukuri Vinoda, 55, of east-central Mahbubabad district hanged herself at her residence in Sanagapuram village early Thursday, after the government announced withdrawing currency notes of 1,000 and 500 denominations from Wednesday.
According to the police, Vinoda, a homemaker, had earlier sold her 12 acres of agricultural land in Sanagapuram for `56.40 lakh. Of this, she had spent `2 lakh on treatment for her husband who suffered a paralytic stroke recently. The remaining amount, all in cash, was kept to meet the expenses of her daughter’s marriage and buy another piece of land, the police added.
On Wednesday, after coming to know about the invalidation of 500 and 1000-rupee notes, a panicked Vinoda began making frantic enquiries about ways to make use of the currency she had kept at home. Villagers, quoting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s late-Tuesday speech, told her that old high-denomination notes were of “no use” and were “as good as waste papers”.
A bitter argument ensued between Vinoda and the rest in her family, who faulted her for selling the entire piece of land “without consulting them”, the police said.
Apparently fearing that all the cash lying with her had turned worthless, the woman killed herself in the wee hours of Thursday after the rest of the family members went to sleep, the police added.
In rural Telangana, most land transactions happen through cash, according to R Madhukar, one of the villagers in Sanagapuram. “This is marriage season in Telangana and most of the households keep high-denomination money at home,” he told HT.