JOIN USThe City accounts for nearly 139 suicide deaths every month. More than 60 per cent of the victims are men aged above 20 years and the rest are women.
On an average, nearly 2,000 people end their lives each year due to various reasons. The City recorded as many as 2,430 suicides in 2007, while the number was 2,374 the following year. As many as 2,167 people committed suicide in 2009 and the number came down to 1,778 in 2010. This year till October, Bangalore has already recorded 1,253 suicides. The number is likely to go up by another 400 if the trend continues.
“The reason why men are prone to suicide is not known. Even the mode of suicides which the victims chose is varied,” observes a city police official. More than 30 per cent of the victims prefer ending their lives by hanging, while nearly 25 per cent consume poison. Curiously, in nearly 40 per cent of the cases, the mode of death is not known.
Compared to men, more women choose to end their lives by setting themselves on fire. As many as 228 women burnt themselves alive in 2007 as against 141 men. The number was 203 as against 134 in 2008. One hundred and seventy-nine women set themselves afire in 2009 as against 107 men. In 2010, the number was 211 as against 116. Shockingly, 146 women burnt themselves to death till October this year as against 89 men.
Suicidal men prefer consuming poison to end their lives and more than 70 per cent choose this mode. Use of arms to commit suicide has been uncommon. In the last five years, only one person, a male, ended his life by shooting himself. The incident was reported in 2009. This shows Bangaloreans don’t misuse arms, notes another officer.
However, the worrying trend for the police is the rise in family suicides. As an officer, who has worked with Central Crime Branch informs Deccan Herald that during the last couple of years, mass suicides within a family is on the rise. An individual ending his/her life is less intense, but five members of a family ending their lives in one place is more intense and tragic, he analyses.
In most cases, heavy financial debt has provoked the head of the family to take the extreme step, forcing the wife and children to follow suit. In a few cases, men have poisoned their children, murdered their wives and then hanged themselves allegedly due to troubles in domestic life and extra-marital affairs.
In October this year, four cases, where all members of a family either committed suicide or attempted to take their lives, were reported. It is high time doctors and counsellors contemplated on this to find a lasting solution, as police can’t do much in this regard, the officer adds.