Aurangabad, Dec 5: Depressed due to illness, an elderly couple from Paithan committed suicide by taking a plunge into the Jayakwadi dam reservoir. Their bodies were found floating in the reservoir on Saturday morning. Victims Suryabhan Dayaram Raut (72) and Kaushalya (66) are the residents of Renuka Devi street in the Paithan town. A note found in a shoe kept out of the water before committing suicide states that they were ending life due to illness. Suryabhan was suffering from knee pain and Kaushalya also often remained ill.
According to the details, the bodies of the couple were found in the reservoir some distance away from the dam control room, around 8 am on Saturday. The Paithan police were alerted by the technical assistant of the cell Ganesh Kharadkar. After this, PSI Ramkrishna Sagade, Sudhir Oval, Manoj Vaidya, Raju Sheikh, Raju Atole, Savita Sonar and their colleagues removed the bodies from the reservoir and shifted them to the government hospital at Paithan.
The Rauts had left the house for a stroll some time after lunch on Friday. As they did not return late Friday night, their children thought that they must have gone to meet relatives and began enquiring. But in the morning, the Raut family was shocked to learn that their parents had committed suicide in the dam. The suicide of the couple has raised the issue of loneliness among the elderly.
Children on good posts
Suryabhan and Kaushalya Raut had four children, one is in the US and the other in a company in Pune. One son has a shoe shop at Shivaji Maharaj Chowk in Paithan and the other a garage on Court Road.