Rakib Altaf
SRINAGAR: A teenage girl is among two young ladies who have committed suicide in north Kashmir, police say.
The number of suicide in the last two weeks in the valley has gone to eleven.
A statement by the police says the two young ladies, one aged 17 and the other 26, took their lives by consuming poison.
They were shifted to local hospitals in Handwara and Kupwara district respectively, but could not survive.
Police say an SPO or a Special Police Officer also tried to commit suicide by taking poison in Uri near the Line of Control. He is being treated at the Medical Institute in Srinagar.
Suicide is a taboo subject in the valley where the majority follow Islam, which denounces suicides; so many suicide deaths are never reported.
But the few figures available offer an insight into the darkest corner of Kashmir’s psyche.
Research from the Psychiatric Diseases Hospital says Kashmir’s suicide rate has increased 40-fold since militancy broke out over two decades ago. Before 1989, Kashmir’s suicide rate was 0.5 per 100,000 people.
Many sociologists and psychiatrists have, however, blamed declining tolerance levels and rise in other mental diseases for the growing suicides among teenagers. But they are quick to add that this is a global phenomenon.
Statistics by the National Crime Records Bureau show that in the age group of 15-29, the highest number of suicides in India were caused by family problems (11768 suicides). Unknown causes were responsible for 7797 suicides while the third most prominent cause was illness.
Dr Abeena Nawaz of the Psychiatric hospital in Srinagar says the growing exposure to crime and violence through mass media is responsible for people taking their lives by suicide.
