Former Agali Panchayat Vice President dies by suicide

A former Vice President of the Agali Panchayat died by suicide early on Saturday. The deceased has been identified as Gopalakrishnan (57), a resident of Puliyara, Agali. 

He consumed pesticides around Saturday midnight at Kanjiravalli, Mannarkkad, where he had been staying for the treatment and surgery for varicose vein. He died around 6.45 am, at Moulana Hospital, Mannarkkad, where he was undergoing treatment.

Gopalakrishnan had taken loans from the Mannarkkad Cooperative Bank for his treatment. Following this, he received a notice stating that his property would be seized and auctioned for non-payment of the borrowed amount, with a provision to avoid the seizure by paying off the outstanding amount before January 6.

"He had attempted to sell his land to repay the debt, but he could not obtain the thandaper (certificate showing the land ownership) for the property," says Akshay P Joseph, the ward member. "It is suspected that this is what led him to the decision to end his life," he added.

However, as per the FIR filed at the Mannarkkad Police Station, he took the extreme step as he was struggling mentally since his surgery left him unable to walk.

"The doctors had informed him that they might have to amputate his leg; this may have been the reason," a police officer told Onmanorama.

In a similar instance, a 53-year-old farmer, Krishnaswamy, from Kavundikkal in Attappadi, was found hanging from a tree in his farmland in October 2025, after being denied the thandaper for his land. Following the incident, Sentil Kumar, a panchayat member at the time, alleged that the officers at the Attappadi Tribal Taluk Office frequently take bribes from the land mafia and alter land documents.