10 November 2004	Wednesday	26 Ramazan 1425

KARACHI, Nov 9: The cases of suicide have marked a significant decline as a whole in the city but its ratio among women has shown an alarming rise during the January-September this year as compared with the corresponding period of the last year.

According to the data compiled by Dawn, 54 cases of suicide were reported in the city from January to September this year, of them 32 were of men and 22 of women.

The data shows that 41 per cent of women ended their lives during the nine months as compared to 21 per cent in the year 2003 and 31 per cent in the year 2002.

The joblessness and domestic disputes over financial matters between husbands and wives remained the major causes inciting people to end their lives. Fifteen people took their lives for being jobless and 15 others for being fed up with domestic situation due to meagre income.

A strange phenomenon in the suicide cases was that four boys and four girls between the ages of 15 and 18 years ended their lives just because they were admonished by their parents or had a dispute with either a brother or a sister over some petty matter.

Two women committed suicide for being childless for many years after their marriages and another woman ended her life when her husband married another woman. She could not tolerate sharing her husband with the other woman and hanged herself in her parents' home.

The common mode of committing suicide was hanging as 32 hanged themselves in their respective homes. Ten people consumed heavy doses of either sleeping pills, pesticides, kerosene or any other poisonous stuff to end their lives. Four other set themselves on fire, four shot themselves dead, two jumped off the Native's Jetty bridge and drowned, one jumped off a high-rise and one, a doctor, slit his own throat and died.

The tendency to committing suicide was high in the people in the age group of 20-29 years as 23 people of this age group ended their lives. Most of them were fed up with their financial problems or joblessness.

Twelve people between the ages of 30 and 39, nine below 20 years, eight between 40 and 49 and two above 50 years ended their lives for various reasons.

According to the data collected, the people living in low- income areas in Korangi, Orangi Town, Lyari, New Karachi, Baldia Town, Sachal, SITE and Surjani Town appeared to had been inclined towards taking their own lives.

The police appeared to be least interested in collecting data of suicide cases. A police official said: "An FIR is not registered if the act of committing suicide is completed. However, a case is registered when a person, committing suicide, has survived the attempt. A case to kill himself is registered against him."

Having received the information, the police reached the spot, inspected the place of occurrence and if the police were convinced that it was a suicide case, the body was sent to a hospital for autopsy, another police official said.

All the proceedings to dispose of the body were carried out under section 174 of the CrPC. The body was later handed over to the deceased's family for burial and the case file was closed, he added.

The police usually do not put information on record collected from the scene of occurrence and the subsequent statements of family and neighbours of the deceased. The police appear to be least interested in investigating the circumstances which led a person to take the extreme step.

Psychiatrists said that a person attempted suicide in utter desperation and hopelessness. It was the state of mind of a person where he or she presumed that his/her life was no longer of importance.

Dr Anila Amber Malik, assistance professor of the department of psychology, University of Karachi, said that interpersonal conflicts, breaking up of relations or marriages, joblessness, etc, could cause stress and depression. An action against high expectations could also cause utter depression, hopelessness and helplessness and if these factors altogether made one feel that his or her life was no longer important, he/she could commit suicide. One's low self-esteem forced him/her to attempt suicide.

She said that different studies showed that it was not necessary that every person attempting to commit suicide give a prior indication of doing so. No person who gave such a gesture attempted suicide.

About cure of such patients, Dr Anila said their treatment was the cognitive behavioural therapy to convert the negative thoughts of the patient into positive ones.

According to Islamic point of view, the act of suicide is a major sin. A religious scholar, Mufti Muneebur Rehman, who is also the chairman of Ruet-i-Hilal Committee, said the act of committing suicide was a negation of the belief in Doom's Day and life after death. A person thought that he would be free of all problems if he ended his life. If one believed in a life hereafter and believed that he had to answer for each of acts, he would think over it several times before committing suicide.

He said that a person could decide to take his own life when he presumed that he was the lone possessor of his life but Islam taught that a person's life was a property Allah in his trust. If a person destroyed his or her life, he or she would be committing a forbidden (haram) act.

"The act of suicide is not a source of getting rid of one's problems but it will lead to an endless suffering in the life hereafter. Islam teaches a person to face challenges with courage and never to despair as much as to end his life," he added.

Mufti Muneeb said poverty, joblessness, and starvation compelled people to commit suicide as there was no collective welfare system. "If our society devises such a system that supports poor as it exists in western countries, they may not resort to the extreme step," he concluded.