Four 15-year-old girls, of Class X in same school, attempt suicide together in Bangalore on Saturday. One survives, two die and one is in the intensive care unit of a hospital.

All the four belonged to below-poverty-line (BPL) families.

Heart-rending, not only for families, but also for the rest of the City.

“It’s very difficult to say what could have compelled them to take this extreme step but since they are in the same class, same school, and from similar economic background, they could be suicide partners. The early teens, between 14 and 16 years, is highly impressionable, and peers matter a lot,” said Dr Uma H, clinical psychology consultant, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Unit, Nimhans, Bangalore.

“Maybe, they shared the same stress since they belong to the same economic group. It could also be that one of them shared her problems with others and there was too much negativity around them. They may not have been able to come out of it. They may have taken the extreme step as a sign of solidarity. There must have been some underlying reasons, of stress,” she added.

The psychologist added often suicide-prone people try and reach out to people for help and resort to taking their lives out of sheer hopelessness. “Some of them feel it is their problem and they need to sort it out. They embrace death as a last recourse. People with psychiatric disorders also are suicide-prone.”

Psychiatrist and psychotherapist Ajit Bhide said, “It’s too premature to say anything. There could be something common in their background,” he said, adding there will be an increase in incidents of suicide because of rising anomie (changing social norms) in society.