Arambagh, March 13: Crash in poultry business in the wake of the bird flu scare and a disastrous turn to his bid to grow potato had forced Shantinath Mondal to suicide.

His eldest son Sunil said he had borrowed about Rs 40,000 from moneylenders over the past year and half for the poultry business and Rs 10,000 from a farmers’ co-operative for the potato. But the crop failed.

“The moneylenders were hounding my father. They were not bothered about the sudden bird flu scare and its impact on the business. The constant humiliation proved too much to bear,” Sunil said.

The potato cultivation was over a small 10-cottah area within his three-bigha poultry farm. “But the crop failed and my father was up to his ears in debt,” said Sunil.

Mondal, in a way the first human claimed by bird flu in India, consumed poison on Friday. He died yesterday morning and his body was brought to his Ramnagar home from Burdwan Medical College and Hospital late last night.

The owners of about 25 small-scale poultry farms in the Arambagh area said they all suffered losses following the flu scare three weeks ago. “But our situation was not as bad as Shantinath’s, who was hounded by moneylenders,” said Uttam Mondal, one such farmer at Ramnagar, about 120 km from Calcutta.

Uttam’s poultry farm is over two cottahs and he, like Shantinath, had to bear with an outbreak of the Ranikhet disease. “I lost over 500 birds. When sales started dropping, I hurriedly sold about 500 other healthy birds at a very cheap rate. I now have about 500 birds in my poultry with virtually no takers,” he said.

A West Bengal Poultry Welfare Association team from Calcutta visited Shantinath’s house this morning. They promised to request animal resources development minister Anisur Rahaman for a compensation for him.

Arambagh subdivisional officer Uttam Patra, however, said that there was no provision of any such compensation.