Woman with 2.25 crore deposit in crisis-hit PMC Bank dies heart attack

A 73-year-old woman died of cardiac arrest in Maharashtra’s Solapur on Sunday allegedly due to stress caused by the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank crisis, as claimed by her family.

Bharti Sadarangani’s family said that she had savings to the amount of Rs. 2.25 crore in the bank, as reported Hindustan Times.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on September 24 put restrictions on withdrawals in the wake of an alleged Rs 4,355 crore scam. The initial withdrawal was capped at Rs. 1,000 which was later hiked to Rs. 40,000.

Sadarangani’s death is the fifth such death that has been reported post this restriction.

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The first depositor to die was 51-year-old Sanjay Gulati. He suffered a cardiac arrest on October 14 hours after attending a depositors’ protest. Gulati was employed with Jet Airways and was unemployed since the airlines went bankrupt. He had around Rs. 90 lakh as deposit with the bank.

This was followed by the alleged suicide by Dr. Nivedita Bijlani. As per reports, she had over Rs. 1 crore savings in her PMC Bank account.

Another death was reported of that of Fattomal Punjabi. Punjabi also died of cardiac arrest. Punjabi and Dharra were neighbours.

The fourth death reported was that of an 83-year-old heart patient, who was a depositor with the PMC Bank died on October 18 after his family was unable to withdraw money from the bank for his surgery.