CHITRAL: Speakers at the consultative meeting here on Tuesday said that major causes of suicide among local youth were unemployment, poverty, failure in marriage as per desire, excessive use of drugs, misuse of social media and deviation from Islamic teachings and social norms.

The meeting titled “Rising incidents of suicides among youth in Chitral’ was held by the district police that was chaired by DPO retired Capt Mansoor Aman. The meeting was attended by the members of civil society organisations, religious leaders and academicians.

The speakers said that religious leaders and teachers should sensitise parents to keep check on their children and encourage them to freely discuss with them the issues of different natures. They said that distance between children and parents pushed the frustrated youth to take the extreme step of committing suicide.

They said that special lectures and brainstorming sessions should be held in schools and colleges in such a way that the students might disseminate the message to the society in large and create an environment in which the youth might despise the act of suicide and might not think it as one of the sources of relief from worries.

The DPO said that police had already taken steps to arrest to control incidents of suicides that included setting up of Darul Aman under the aegis of social welfare department and zero tolerance towards drugs peddling in the district.

LECTURE: Renowned cardiologist retired Maj Gen Dr Azhar Mahmood Kayani, the executive director of Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology, delivered a special lecture on “Cardiovascular diseases and preventing measures” in Town Hall here on Tuesday.

The lecture was termed as first of its kind in Chitral in which dwellers of the city participated in large number. They asked a number of questions regarding heart diseases.

Dr Kayani said that people were not properly aware about the nature of heart diseases, which they could prevent easily by taking a number of steps. He said that ischemic heart diseases (IHD) were common in the area. “It is known as No.1 killer but it is curable with diet and life style modifications, which are caused by loss of blood supply to heart due to the narrowing of arteries,” he added.

The health expert asked people to keep abreast themselves of their cholesterol level and other dimensions of their body by undergoing periodical laboratory tests so that their physician could advise them proper medication, which would go a long way to save them from IHD.

Dr Kayani said that one of the factors of the rising number of IHD was consumption of contaminated cooking oil and special penchant for consumption of meat in daily diet. He recommended use of vegetables and fruits.

Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2018