Chennai, June 10 (BPNS)
Suicides after losing money including on Thursday night by a 32-year-old woman have led to the Tamil Nadu government constituting a committee to provide recommendations in two weeks for the promulgation of an ordinance against playing online rummy.
The government on Friday constituted a four-member committee headed by Justice (Rtd) Chandru to provide recommendations in two weeks for promulgation of the ordinance.
It may be noted that Justice (Rtd) Chandru is a human right and Dalit activist and was instrumental as an advocate in getting justice for the Irula tribal woman who had fought a missing case of her husband who was later found to be killed in police lock-up. The ordeal of the incident of 1996 was depicted in the movie,’ Jai Bhim’ in which Tamil Superstar Suriya played the role of Justice (Rtd) Chandru.
The Tamil Nadu government has constituted the committee following several deaths due to people losing money in online rummy games.
The latest incident was the suicide of a 32-year-old woman, Bhuvaneshwari at Nandambakkam, Chennai on Thursday night after her jobless husband lost 20,000 rupees. The money, according to police was kept aside by Bhuvaneshwari as the amount to be paid as fee to her son who is studying in Class IX.
Suresh, according to police was jobless and was addicted to online rummy, and had taken the money which was kept safely by Bhuvaneshwari. The money was taken by Suresh without the knowledge of Bhuvaneshwari and when she searched for the money she found that it was gone. She questioned Suresh who admitted that he had taken the money for playing online rummy.
An infuriated Bhuneshwari entered into a fight with Suresh and later got into her room and hanged herself using her dupatta. This suicide is the latest trigger for the state government to constitute a four-member panel to provide recommendations for promulgating an ordinance against online rummy.
On Sunday, June 5th a 29-year-old woman, Bhavani committed suicide after losing heavily in online rummy games in Manali new town situated near Chennai. Police said that she had the habit of playing online rummy games and had earned good profits in the earlier stages and had invested more money ending to lose huge money in the past four months. She lost more than ten lakh rupees in the online rummy game. Her husband Bhagyaraj and her relative Saravanan have called that she lost her life only due to her mounting debts in online rummy and called for a ban on the same.
Many youngsters in Tamil Nadu have lost lives in the past few years after losing money in the online rummy games contemplating the state government to mull for a ban.
C. Rajeev, Director, Centre for Policy and Development Studies, a think tank based out of Chennai while speaking to BPNS said, “ The earlier the better, the state government must take initiative to promulgate an ordinance to ban online rummy in the state. People are losing lives by being addicted to online rummy which has led to several children becoming orphans following the death of the breadwinners of the family. A person like Justice (rtd) Chandru heading the panel of four members is a laudable effort of the state government and hope that the online rummy menace is immediately put an end to in Tamil Nadu.”
