RANCHI: At least two people died of starvation in Jharkhand in the last 25 days, taking the number of "hunger deaths" in the state to 17 since September 2017, according to a fact-finding report by the Right to Food Campaign.The report stated that Kaleshwar Soren (45), a resident of Dumka district and Seeta Devi (75), of Gumla died on November 11 and October 27 due to hunger after they could not procure the subsidised ration allocated to them under Public Distribution Schemes (PDS) because of "technical" problems. The districts' administration, however, have denied that the deaths happened due to starvation.Siraj Datta, who was part of the fact-finding team, said Soren, a resident of Mahuatanr village in Dumka district, was denied ration after his family's ration card was cancelled in 2016 as it was not linked with his Aadhaar card. While Soren had misplaced his card, none of the other members had Aadhaar.According to the team, Soren lived in extreme deprivation and lack of food and nutrition was routine for the family, "He had become weak over the last couple of years and had to mortgage his family's agricultural land and sell off his pair of oxen to survive. Two of his sons work as daily wagers in Rajasthan and could not visit home even once in the last two years. They could not even visit after their father's death," said Datta, who visited Soren's house for investigation on November 16 and 17."While the village head claimed to have given some grain to Soren's from the grain bank established to support vulnerable families, we could not verify the claim," Datta said, adding that besides Soren, ration cards of 27 families of the same village were cancelled in 2016, but a few got their names back on the list.

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