COVID TIME: Teacher couple who owned school ends life due to mounting debt
Kurnool: Corona spread in the past two years and its effect on the businesses were deadly and a teacher couple in this region was among its latest victims. The couple found it hard to run the school they founded as it stopped getting fees from students and the two finally ended their lives.
"Failing to pay back the bank EMIs, the loan burden increased over the past many months and even the interests piled up. Faced with serious financial odds, the couple committed suicide after advising students to find another school and sought their pardon for the critical situation. The incident happened at Koilakuntla village in Kurnool district,” police said on Tuesday.
The deceased were Karnati Subramanyam (33), a private school correspondent at Koilakuntla town, and his wife Rohini (27).
The couple committed suicide by swallowing poison tablets in an area close to Karivena village in Atmakur mandal on Sunday night. The couple took selfie videos before taking this extreme step and these were sent to their friends and relatives, which quickly went viral on social media.
According to Koilakuntla circle inspector Subbarayudu, the deceased couple ran the private school Life Energy English Medium School in Koilakuntla for the past four years. They invested Rs 2 crore to develop the school infrastructure, including for purchase of six school buses. They borrowed heavily from banks and money lenders and improved the school facilities.
In the aftermath of the Covid-spread, school admissions stopped and there were no fee collections in these two years, resulting in mounting debts. The couple faced mounting pressure from financiers. On Sunday morning, they went to Atmakur, the hometown of Rohini by their car, and returned in the evening to Koilakuntla. On the way, they parked the car near Karivena village, swallowed poison tablets and sent their selfie videos from within the car to some of their phone contacts.
Alerted over the video message, some relatives rushed to the place and shifted the couple to Kurnool government general hospital. They died on the way, one after another. Atmakur police registered a case and the investigation is on.
