Tonto (Chaibasa): Kande Laguri ventured into the forests near his home at Luia village in West Singhbhum's Tonto block to collect firewood in October last year. The 50-year-old wandered off deeper into the forest than usual when he accidentally set foot on a landmine planted by the Maoists to keep the security forces at bay. Laguri lost his life instantly but it took security forces nearly 24 hours to retrieve his corpse.
The motorable road in the block, which meanders through the undulating terrain, comes to an abrupt halt at Padampura village, nearly three kilometres from Luia. Dalal Nayak, a farmer at Padampura, knew Kande for years. He told TOI, "Kande's sons migrated outside Jharkhand for work after his death.
His wife died a few years ago." A hundred metres uphill from Padampura, one could see a bunch of teenagers descending on their bicycles with heavy loads of firewood. Of them was Suresh Hansda (19) who lives in Durrita village, five kilometres away.
Suresh, a first-year graduate student at Chaibasa's Tata College, said, "I voted for the first time in the Lok Sabha election and will vote this time, too." Kande, Dalal and Suresh, all come from poor income families which mostly eke out their living through farming on small land patches and by becoming migrant workers. But despite their various livelihoods, all of their families depend on firewood from the local forest patches for cooking.
While majority of these families have not received LPG cylinders under the Centre.