Man rendered jobless by India Maggi ban commits suicide

Contract worker Lalta Prasad was among 1,100 workers asked to leave after a court restrained company's operations

A 90-day ban imposed on Maggi rendered some 1,100 workers jobless in India, one of whom committed suicide on Tuesday.

Contract worker Lalta Prasad, who worked at Nestle India in the Rudrapur city of Uttarakhand state, took his own life 13 days after a high court barred the company from future sale and production of the popular instant noodles for a period of 90 days.

According to officials, the 32-year-old hailed from Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly and had been working  at the plant, situated at State Industrial Development Corporation 70 km from Nainital, for the past two years.

Read: Nestle challenges noodles ban in Indian court

"The wife of the worker came to know about Prasad's suicide after the door of his room remained shut on Monday. His body was hanging from a fan," NA Bharne, senior superintendent of police US Nagar district, they told the Hindustan Times on Tuesday.

He leaves behind a wife and two children.

As police said they were probing the matter further, they suspected Prasad also faced family issues and had been stressed out when he was asked by the company to "sit at home".

Read: India to seek damages from Nestle over 'unsafe noodles'

Meanwhile, a high court in Uttarakhand sought the government’s response on June 20 as at least 16 samples of the noodles failed the food-standard test as revealed by a Rudrapur laboratory.

The same court of law had, on June 3, restrained Nestle India from selling, producing, stocking or distributing the noodles in the aforementioned state.

The article first appeared on the Hindustan Times