A farmer from Kanpur who had reportedly written a letter to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath two weeks ago to protect him and his land from a BJP leader committed suicide on Saturday evening by jumping before a train.

According to a suicide note found on the tracks, Babu Singh Yadav, 52, said he had in his letter to the chief minister mentioned Mainpuri BJP leader Priyaranjan Ashu Diwakar.

Ashok Dubey, the in-charge of Chakeri police station under which Babu’s village falls, said: “We have recovered a suicide note in which the farmer has written everything. He has named three persons for his decision to end his life. Diwakar is one of them.”

On Saturday, Babu saw some people carving out small plots from his 10-bigha land in the adjoining Ahirvan village.

“He returned home, refused to eat anything and went out after some time. Later, someone told us that he committed suicide on the tracks,” Dharmendra Yadav, the nephew of the deceased, said.

The farmer has left behind his wife Bittan Devi and two daughters, Rubi and Kajal, who are students of BSc and Intermediate in a local college.

“The BJP leader used to intimidate my uncle and ask him to sell his agricultural land. My uncle finally decided to sell his land for Rs 6.20 crore. The politician gave a cheque of Rs 6.20 crore to my uncle just before the registry was done in March this year. However, after coming out of the registry office, he said there was some error in the cheque and he would give another one the next day. Later, he refused to pay the money,” Dharmendra said.

Dharmendra said any registry of land is illegal if the payment is not made through cheque or online as it is mandatory to mention the details in the documents.

“As the payment was not made in this case, the registration paper that the BJP leader had with him was illegal. But he captured the land. My uncle had moved the court in April against the illegal possession of the land, but the politician sold it to his builder friend from Noida who started carving out plots to sell for residential purposes,” he added.

Bittan said her husband used to say that he would commit suicide if they didn’t get justice.

“I would tell him not to take any wrong step as we can live in poverty but cannot live without him. But he would say that god will listen to us and the media would raise this issue only when he dies. I used to console him and say that god doesn’t help the poor these days,” she said.

“Priyaranjan Ashu Diwakar and his henchmen destroyed us,” she added.

Diwakar, who had contested from the Kishani Assembly seat in Mainpuri district in 2022 and lost to Brajesh Katheria of the Samajwadi Party, denied any wrongdoing.

“I have not committed any crime. It was a fair deal and the farmer had got the price of his land. We will cooperate in the inquiry,” he told reporters.

Amar Nath, additional commissioner of police of Kanpur, said: “We have booked six persons on the basis of the complaint received from the wife of the victim. They are Priyaranjan, Jitendra Diwakar, Rahul Jain, Madhur Pandey, Bablu Yadav and Shivam Chauhan. We are conducting an inquiry.”

A home department officer said: “We have not received any complaint at the CM’s office from the victim. Maybe it will reach here in a day or two. The police are handling the matter and an inquiry is in progress.”