PATHANAMTHITTA: The suicide of an agriculture department employee has triggered outrage, with family members blaming officials of the Education Department for alleged negligence. The deceased, identified as Shijo V T (47) from Naranammoozhy, Pathanamthitta, was discovered hanging in the Moongampara forest on Sunday evening.

Family members have alleged that negligence by officers at the District Education Office (DEO) drove Shijo to take the extreme step. Shijo’s wife, Lekha Ravindran, a teacher at an aided school in Naranamoozhy, had reportedly not received her salary for the past 14 years, a situation that had caused severe distress within the family.

Shijo had approached the High Court regarding Lekha’s salary issue. The court ordered that her pending salary be released with retrospective effect. However, due to errors in the salary records at the DEO office, the payment was delayed. Shijo reportedly contacted the education minister several times about this, and the minister’s office later instructed the DEO to correct the records. Even then, the officials allegedly failed to act. The school management committee also contacted the DEO office, but no further action was taken, the family claimed.

The situation was further compounded by Shijo’s inability to arrange funds for his son’s admission to an engineering college in Erode, which relatives say added to his mental distress. Shijo was the son of Thyagarajan, a district committee member of the farmers’ union.