Painter in Mumbai hangs self after being harassed by three colleagues over repaying ₹3,000

Ganpat Tonte, in his suicide note, blamed his three colleagues for mentally and physically harassing him.

Three men have been arrested for allegedly abetting their colleague’s suicide on Saturday. They are accused of harassing and torturing him to repay a loan of Rs3,000 he took from them.

According to the Chunabhatti police, Ganpat Tonte, a painter, hanged himself at his room in Nagoba Chawl at Swadeshi Mill Compound on Saturday and left a suicide note, in which he had blamed his three colleagues for mentally and physically harassing him. All four of them worked for a contractor for painting jobs.

Sunil Bhosale, senior police inspector at Chunabhatti police station, said Tonte, in the suicide note, which was written in Marathi, had said that a few months ago he had taken a loan of Rs3,000 from his colleagues but was unable to pay it back. “Tonte wrote in the note that the three harassed him daily for the money. On Wednesday, the matter went out of his hands when they defamed him in front of their colony and broke the petrol tank of his motorcycle,” said Bhosale.