Toy vendor sets himself ablaze to protest inaction on Cauvery row

Erode: In a tragic development, a toy vendor near here committed suicide by self-immolation in the wee hours of Thursday, in protest against the Central government’s failure to set up the Cauvery Management Board (CMB) and also opposing the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Tamil Nadu today. 

An apparently dejected 25-year-old vendor B Dharmalingam, a bachelor and resident of Chithode near Erode, came out of his house around 3 am, suddenly doused himself with kerosene and set fire to himself. The loud, shrieking cries of Dharmalingam, who had had also lost his parents few years ago, brought neighbours out of their homes and doused the fire. 

Police said Dharmalingam was rushed to Erode government hospital with severe burn injuries. As he suffered more than 90 per cent burns, poor Dharmalingam died without responding to treatment within few hours of being admitted to hospital.   

Police further said Dharmalingam was eking out a living by selling toys and had no political links. Before committing suicide, he wrote with chalk on a nearby wall expressing his objection to the Centre not forming the CMB, how Cauvery river is the lifeline of Tamil Nadu and also expressed his protest to the visit of the Prime Minister to Chennai on Thursday. The Chithode police have registered a case and further investigations are on.