BHOPAL: Two government teachers working as booth level officers under the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls have died in two separate districts of Madhya Pradesh over the last 24 hours.

The two have been identified as Ramakant Pandey and Sitaram Gond.

While the authorities claimed that the two BLOs died due to health related issues, the bereaved families alleged that it was due to unbearable work pressure and fear of being suspended for not achieving the daily targets.

Confirming the death of Ramakant Pandey, a teacher-cum-BLO from Satlapur area, who was assigned voter list revision task in Mandideep area, the sub divisional officer (SDO) and electoral registration officer of Raisen’s Bhojpur assembly segment Chandrashekhar Srivastava reportedly said that Pandey died on Friday night due to some illness. “We are awaiting the autopsy, which will make the cause of death clear.”

Pandey’s widow Rekha and other family members, however, alleged that excessive work pressure, including working late at nights, repeated orders to achieve unrealistic targets and fear of being suspended for dereliction of duty if the targets weren’t met, caused the death of the middle-aged teacher, who was posted at Tilakhedi primary school.

Around 220 km away, in Damoh district, another middle-aged school teacher Sitaram Gond, who was tasked with enumeration duties in Ranjra and Kuda Kudan villages, suddenly fell ill on Thursday while getting the enumeration forms filled. “He was first taken to the Damoh district hospital, but later referred by doctors to Jabalpur for advanced treatment in serious condition, where he breathed last during treatment on Friday night,” an education department official said.

The deceased teacher’s close relatives and friends claimed that he was under severe work pressure. He had only managed to complete 10-15% of work in the two villages assigned to him.