A 45-year-old man committed suicide by setting himself on fire in Karachi's Orangi Town on Monday evening, according to Pakistan Bazaar police and rescue sources.

Police officials, quoting eyewitnesses, said that the victim took out a bottle of petrol from his rickshaw near his residence at Nishan-i-Haider Chowk, sprinkled it over his body and set himself on fire.

Residents of the area rushed him to a nearby hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead on arrival. The body was subsequently shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital to fulfil legal formalities.

Pakistan Bazaar Station House Officer Iqbal Tunio said that the rickshaw driver ended his life due to poverty. The officer added that the deceased had been plying the rickshaw on rent.

Another police officer, Mohammed Safdar, said that the deceased was under a heavy burden of debts. He was supposed to return loans to people and shopkeepers from whom he bought essential items. He was also not in a position to pay his house rent, the officer added, quoting his relatives.

He was married but without any children.

The deceased's relatives told police that they did not want any legal proceedings of the case.

The incident comes less than a month after a father of four committed suicide in the city's Ibrahim Hyderi neighbourhood, allegedly due to not being able to provide for his family due to financial constraints.

Police officials had said that he sprinkled kerosene oil over his body and set himself on fire. Ibrahim Hyderi SHO Raza Solangi had said that the deceased had recorded a statement before a police officer after he was admitted to the hospital.

Police had quoted him as saying that he had decided to end his life due to joblessness and poverty. The deceased worked as a junk dealer and ran a donkey cart.

A letter was found from the deceased's pocket addressed to Prime Minister Imran Khan, in which he had said that he was very poor and should be given a job and a house.