Uttar Pradesh: Headmaster on SIR duty dies of heart attack, 8 deaths reported in past 10 days

New Delhi: In yet another case of a person on SIR duty dying, an assistant booth level officer died of a heart attack in Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal district. The man, a headmaster at a school, became the 8th person involved in SIR duty to lose his life, reported the Times of India. Three people have died by suicide in the state. All of the deceased were in some way or the other involved in the task of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state.

The deceased has been identified as 40-year-old Arvind Kumar. He hailed from Chaukuuni village in Sambhal. The area falls under the Nakhasa police station limits. His family claimed that he was under immense pressure due to the electoral revision work assigned to him.

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The man is survived by his wife, Pratibha and 2 children. His daughter, Garima is 13, while his son Lavosh is 10. Both children study at a school in Amroha district.

Kumar was posted as the headmaster of a government primary school in Faiyaznagar village under Hasanpur block of Amroha district. Talking about his death, a family member said that his wife Pratibha tried to wake him up on Monday morning, but the man remained unresponsive. The worried woman then approached fellow villagers for help. But by the time they gathered, Kumar had already died.

Kumar's brother-in-law, Lal Singh who is also working in the SIR exercise, said that till Sunday evening, Kumar was actively working as an assistant BLO. He claimed that all the BLOs and their deputies were under immense pressure to meet targets during the SIR exercise and similar was the case with Kumar. He claimed that the urgency around the entire exercise had deeply impacted the man.

Singh said that had the Election Commission extended the deadline to complete the SIR exercise, a bit earlier, such a tragedy would not have happened. He said that had they been given more time, earlier, there would not have been so much pressure on the BLOs and the assistant BLOs.

It is often headmasters and government school employees in Group C and above, who are assigned election-related work by the Commission. This goes on despite a ruling of the Allahabad High Court which said teachers should be used only if no other staff are available to do the election-related work. However, UP continues to assign the work to teachers and headmasters, reasoning that there is staff shortage.

Before the death of the headmaster from Sambhal, 7 other BLOs involved in SIR-related work had died in UP. 3 of them in fact, died by suicide. While 1 suicide was reported from Moradabad, the other happened in Fatehpur. In Moradabad, 40-year-old Sarvesh Singh died by suicide, leavong behind a suicide note, talking about distress over digital form uploads, sleeplessness, and fear. Th other suicide was that of a young 27-year-old man lekhpal Sudhir Kumar Kuril. He said that he was taking his own life, after being threatened with dismissal. The man died just a day before his wedding.