Aasra in The daily Pioneer, Saturday, 17/12/2011

http://www.dailypioneer.com/sunday-edition/agenda/cover-story/28463-love-break-up-a-death.html LOVE BREAK-UP & DEATH Saturday, 17 December 2011 17:19 pioneer User Rating: / 0 PoorBest Be it a break-up gone public on Facebook or a mother not allowing her child to access the net in a cyber cafe, or even when a parent raises his voice on his child, reasons to end a life have become very casual and flippant. With more than four persons committing suicide a day over not so serious issues, this has become a massive problem to handle. Neha Verma brings you a report Worst person ever, I hate you. Revenge is best when serve cold!” — These were the lines of the suicide note found on Malini Murmu’s laptop. She had hung herself to death in her hostel room. On September 19, 2011, the 22-year-old MBA student Murmu, a native of Jamshedpur in Jharkhand, committed suicide by hanging herself in room number 421, L-block of Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. Reason: She was dumped by her boyfriend on Facebook. She left a suicide note saying that she was killing herself over the public announcement that her boyfriend had made about the break-up on a social networking site. “Murmu had been depressed for quite a while and had not been taking her classes seriously. When her classmates noticed her absence on September 19, they went to her room. The security guard was called to open the door. It was only then that they found her hanging from the ceiling fan,” Mohan Kumar, investigating officer at the Mico Layout police station in Bangalore, tells you about the shocking incident. Just a day before this incident, Murmu had gone to Delhi to meet her boyfriend 24-year-old Abhishek Dhan, an IIT-Roorkee pass out who is working in Delhi with HP Pvt Ltd. The couple had an argument, which resulted in the break-up. Later, Dhan posted on his Facebook page: Feeling super cool today. Dumped my new ex-girlfriend. Happy independence day. After seeing the post, Murmu lost her patience and decided to commit this act. The incident has left the family cursing their fate. “My wife and I spoke to Malini at between 2 pm the same afternoon but we couldn’t make out that she was depressed. I was more like a friend to her than a father, but it came to me as a shock that she was in a relationship. She never shared anything about this relationship,” says 50-year-old Bishwanath Murmu, Malini’s father. The family lodged a complaint and a case of abetment to suicide was filed against against Dhan. According to the father, his daughter was outspoken and courageous, not the kind who would take such an extreme step. “My daughter was outspoken and confident in her demeanour. She was very active on Facebook. According to what has been told to us, it was Dhan’s derogatory remarks that forced her to take this step. She was forced to commit suicide following the mental torture that came with this simple update,” adds Bishwanath. Her professors held a good impression about Malini who was regarded as a bright student. “Before getting into IIM-B, Malini did her training with Infosys and left the job to take up further studies. She had completed her engineering from KIIT, Bhubaneswar in electronics and telecommunications,” Bishwanath said on phone from Jamshedpur. With over a million people hooked on to social networking sites, privacy has long gone out of the window. It is one of the main reasons for some of the noticeable mental problems that we witness in youngsters today. “It is true that with the advent of technology, we are becoming more and more dependent on such sites. If a fight happens between a couple on the road side, a crowd of 10 odd people might gather, but they disperse as soon as the matter is over. However, if there is a verbal duel happening in the public domain on FB, 1000 friends see the post and it remains there till someone removes it. The update also has a lingering impact as friends post comments on it. We have analysed Malini Murmu’s case and feel that this was the cause which forced her to take this extreme step,” explains Dr Sandeep Vohra, a reputed clinical psychiatrist with Apollo Hospital, New Delhi. Off late, incidents of youth committing suicides for petty issues have grown manifold. Initially the reasons for committing suicide used to be the fear of failing an examination and other work-related problems. But now youngsters want to end their life at the pettiest of reasons that they can think of. Psychologists opine that this is because the younger generation is intelligent, but not mature. The fact that statistics of such suicides jumped by 26 per cent in the last four years bears credence. “The increase in suicide cases is a reason to worry. In the last few years, people have become impatient and their tolerance level has also gone down immensely. They are so stressed that they always jump to the conclusion of committing suicide even when the problem is not very big. More often than not, it is the society that is to blame. Working parents barely have enough quality time to spend with their children. The communication patterns have changed drastically, which could be a reason why young people don’t think twice before taking an extreme step,” Dr Vohra says. While most people have ended their lives because of problems in relationships, there are many others who committed suicide because of no reason at all. Take for instance, the incident on November 20, 2011, where 14-year-old Saumya Kumar, a class X student of LPS Vijayant Khand branch in Gomtinagar, Lucknow ended her life after she was denied permission by her mother to go to a cyber cafe. According to investigating officers, Saumya sought her mother’s permission to visit a cyber cafe. When her mother refused, Saumya ended her life by hanging herself from a ceiling fan later that evening. The family is completely shaken up by this sudden incident and they refused to comment on the case. “We are deeply grieved by this act and do not wish to speak with the media,” Saumya’s close relative tells you. While students have ended their life due to the most flippant of reasons, it is the parents and teachers these days who live in a perpetual state of fear that their behaviour might become a reason for their children to commit suicide. “We can’t be too harsh with our own children because they have become so rebellious that they tend to commit suicide for the smallest of things,” says Professor Neera Bhalla Sarin, a reputed sociologist in JNU. In another freak incident, on December 12, 2011, Akansha Singh alias Juhi, daughter of Rakesh Singh and a native of Azamgarh district committed suicide by hanging herself in the police quarters in Lucknow. The 18-year-old was pursuing her graduation and staying with her constable aunt when things started to go wrong. On November 11, her mother, Seema allegedly scolded Akansha for not paying attention to studies and that apparently drove her to commit suicide. While the family is still trying to cope with Akansha’s death, the police is busy investigating the real reason for the suicide. Why are more and more youngsters getting inclined to committing suicide? “The problem lies in the fact that children these days lack patience. They do not want to hear a ‘no’ for anything and do not want to be treated as children either. We can not determine the exact reason for this trend. It could either be because of the influence of cinema or simply peer pressure, but these children do not want their freedom to be curbed,” adds Dr Vohra. Fifteen-year-old Satish Reddy, resident of Nellore district in Andhra Pradesh, ran away from his home on August 2, 2011 after being treated harshly by his parents. His body was recovered from the Hussain Sagar Lake on August 9, 20011. According to a police report, Satish, a student of Class X, was negligent in studies and that pushed his worried parents into scolding him. As a consequence, the boy left his home and arrived at Hyderabad and then jumped into the Hussain Sagar Lake. Another 19-year-old girl Deepa died after drinking a mosquito repellent at her house in Nerkundram town in Tamil Nadu. She was scolded by her mother for watching too much TV. She was an undergraduate student of the Annamalai University. After having an altercation with her mother, Deepa walked up to a mosquito repellent plugged near the TV seat and emptied its contents into herself. “There has been an increase in number of such freak cases of suicide. We get 25-30 calls daily on all our helpline numbers. Surprisingly, the age group that calls up the most is between the 15-45 years. From school students to college passouts to even youngsters, everyone needs counseling to come out of depression and suicidal thoughts. We are a crisis intervention service exclusively aimed at suicide prevention. We provide them with non-judgmental listening therapy focussed on draining their negative feelings and emotions. This alleviates their pain and helps them think of other options besides suicide,” says Johnson Thomas, director AASRA NGO, a suicide intervention and prevention organisation. “What is more shocking is that most of the cases that we get are of jilted lovers. Or of misled school children,” Professor Sarin tells you. Surya, a 14-year-old schoolgirl in Melathukurichi, set herself ablaze after allegedly being accused of theft by her headmistress at school. According to the investigating officers, Vijayalakshi who is the headmistress of the Union Middle School asked Surya to repay Rs 500swhich had allegedly stolen from one of her classmates. When Surya refused to have committed the crime, she was beaten up mercilessly. Following the incident, Surya attempted to commit suicide by setting herself ablaze with kerosene. She succumbed to her injuries on October 15, 2011. The 14-year-old stated in her dying declaration that the reason behind her suicide attempt was the treatment meted out by her headmistress. Vijayalakshmi is being questioned. In another incident at Guduvanchery, Meltalson Sinha died after consuming poison at the hostel room inside the SRM college campus on October 27, 2011. Police said Sinha was depressed after a failed romance on campus. Sinha was staying with two of his classmates , Amas and Piyas, both from Meghalaya, in the hostel. It is they who found Sinha’s body lying unconscious after they returned from shopping. They informed the warden, who alerted the police. Sinha was admitted at a private hospital where he died later that day. Although he didn’t leave any suicide note, the Police have closed the case and ruled out any other cause of death. “Sadly, it is not the case that only young school children fall prey to this depression. More often it is well placed adults who feel the need to end their life if something goes amiss,” Shefali Dutta, a psychiatrist with the Vimhans hospital in New Delhi, explains. In the wee hours of November 23, 2011, the railway police discovered the body of a 21-year-old boy who had committed suicide by coming under a train. Avinash K, a fifth semester student of mechanical engineering at the National Institute of Engineering (NIE), Hyderabad, was run over by a train near Jayanagar railway gate. According to police reports, Avinash, when he left home to attend an examination, sent an SMS to his elder brother Vijay, stating that he will commit suicide. Shocked at the message, Avinash’s parents, Krishnamurthy K and Sumathi, reached the spot, between Ashokapuram and Chamarajapuram, only to find their child’s body. Avinash and Vijay were chess players. Their father Krishnamurthy is an employee at the Rare Materials Plant (RMP) and a resident of RMP Quarters in Kuvempu Nagar, near here. According to Krishnamurthy’s statement to Railway Police, he did not find any reason for their son’s extreme step. Relatives and friends of Avinash, who gathered at the mortuary of Mysore Medical College and Research Institute, where his body was transferred for a post-mortem examination, said that he was good at studies and had obtained an engineering seat on merit. AFFAIR TO REMEMBER? June 29, 2011, a 26-year-old IT professional, Surender Singh abruptly ended his life in his posh flat in DLF City in Gurgaon. He was a native of Panipat in Haryana and was working at Wipro. He was found hanging in the balcony of his house by one of his roommates. He used a cable wire to hang himself. “Surender might have committed suicide because his five-year-old relationship with his girlfriend had taken a bitter turn lately. However there was no confirmation,” Rajendra Kumar, sub-inspector, tells you. “We don’t know yet if he was in a relationship. We used to speak with him daily on the telephone and he often visited home but never spoke to us about a relationship. We don’t even know who the girl was. Surender was a lively person and never faced any problem at his workplace,” recalls 80-year-old Karan Singh, father of the deceased. Surender was the youngest of four siblings and shared a good relationship with his family members. “We keep wondering what drove him to take this step. He should have told us the problem and we could have tried doing something to sort out whatever issues he was facing,” says the 40-year-old brother Sanjay Singh. November 29, 2011: A 21-year-old software engineer committed suicide at his rented apartment in Sector 21 over a failed relationship. Saumitra Kumar, the deceased, was the son of a senior medical officer at Shahbad, Kurukshetra. He hanged himself from the ceiling fan of his room. His body was spotted next morning by his housemates. After completing his BTech he had come to Gurgaon for work six months ago. On Tuesday night, he had his dinner with his friends at the apartment. When he did not open the door in the morning, friends grew suspicious and opened the room. He, reportedly, used to talk to one girl for long hours in the night. He was depressed over the sour relations. OUTNUMBERED Suicide is one of the top three causes of death among the young in the age group of 15-35 years. Suicide estimates suggest fatalities worldwide could rise to 1.5 million by 2020. National Crime Records Bureau statistics reveal that last year 93,207 adults committed suicide in the country. Student suicides increased by 26 per cent from 2006 to 2010, with metros Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru having most victims. While 5,857 student suicides were reported in 2006, the figure jumped to 7,379 in 2010. This shows 20 students killed themselves every day in 2010.