Suicides: India
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Suicides in 2012
Half of Mumbai's suicide victims below age 30
Sumitra Deb Roy & V Narayan, TNN | Jun 25, 2013
The metros
Suicides in Mumbai rose by an alarming 12% in 2012 after witnessing a dip the previous year. A staggering 50% of those who took their lives in the city were younger than 30 and among these more than half were women, reveals the latest data of the National Crime Records Bureau.
A total of 1,296 people killed themselves in the financial capital last year, placing it fourth in the list of Indian cities with the highest suicide incidence. Chennai led the death chart with 2,183 suicides, followed by Bangalore (1,989) and Delhi (1,397).
National suicide rate
The national suicide rate (total suicides per lakh population) stood at 11.4 in 2012, a few points higher than Mumbai's 7 and a few points lower than Maharashtra's 14.
Gender
Generally, men accounted for more suicide deaths than women. The trend was true in Mumbai, where 59% of the suicide victims were men, and in Maharashtra, where 70% of the victims were males. Nationally too, the ratio of male to female suicide victims was 66.2 to 33.8. An exception to the trend was the age group of up to 14 years; in Mumbai, thrice the number of girls in this age bracket killed themselves than boys.
Dr Lakshmi Vijaykumar, who was responsible for the inclusion of suicide prevention in the National Mental Health Policy of India, said there is wide variation in suicide rates within the country. "The southern states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have a suicide rate of more than 15, while in the northern states of Punjab, UP, Bihar and Kashmir, the suicide rate is less than 3. This pattern has been stable for the last twenty years."
Vijaykumar added that smaller cities are worryingly catching up with metros in recording high suicide rates. "Also, the fact that 71% of suicides in India are by persons below the age of 44 imposes a huge social, emotional and economic burden on our society."
Causes
Family problems were revealed in the NCRB data to be the single largest factor driving people to end their lives. The factor was given as the cause of 40% suicides-264 men and 262 women-in Mumbai and 26% suicides across the country. Major illnesses, such as cancer and AIDS, taken together constituted the second biggest suicide cause-causing 28% of the deaths-in Mumbai. They were followed by drug addiction (6.9%), failure in exam (4.5%) and love affairs (4.5%). Boys and girls alike took their lives over love affairs.
Emotional reasons like failed marriage, relationship and love affairs drove most of the 534 female suicides in Mumbai. By contrast, the causes of the 762 male suicides were economic, relating to poverty and employment.
Method of suicide
Hanging emerged to be the most employed method to end one's life, with 917 of the 1,296 victims in the city using it. In Maharashtra, 7,055 people killed themselves this way. Self-immolation was the second most common suicide method in Mumbai and consuming poison the third. Surprisingly, only one person committed suicide in the city by coming under the train, though the figure for the category was 128 in the state.
Referring to the allegations of abuse, criminal lawyer Adhik Shirodkar questioned how they could be proved with the victim dead. "A suicide note helps police give direction to the probe and establish the cause of death. But it can't be the sole basis for arresting someone."
Many lawyers, who have worked on similar cases, called for guidelines to control police action in such cases. "This type of action may also lead to questions about the police's intentions in going after people without any real evidence," a criminal lawyer said.
Suicides in 2013
Numbers
2013 records 15 suicides every hour
Deeptiman Tiwary
New Delhi:
TNN
The Times of India Jul 01 2014
As many as 15 suicides took place every hour in 2013 in India with suicides due to illegitimate pregnancies showing a sharp rise of 64.5%. The latest data from National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) for 2013 shows that more than one lakh people (1,34,799) took their lives for various reasons ranging from family problems to illness during the year.
According to the data, Tamil Nadu (12.3%), Maharashtra (12.3%), AP (10.8%), West Bengal (9.7%) and Karnataka (8.4%) together contributed 53.5% of suicide victims.
`Family problems' (24.0%) and `Illness' (19.6%) continue to be the greatest killers accounting for 43.6% of suicides.
It also seems to suggest senior citizens are most depressed in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, where 54.9% of suicide victims were in the age group 60 years and above.
Nearly 70.8% of the suicide victims were married men while 66.6% were married women. Students constituted 6.2% of the total suicide victims while one in every six victims was a housewife.
Causes
More people ended lives over love than poverty
Deeptiman Tiwary TNN
The Times of India Jul 02 2014
More people commit suicide daily due to unrequited love or a failed affair than due to poverty , bankruptcy or unemployment in the country .
According to the 2013 NCRB data, there were 12 suicides every day due to love affairs comparedto five for poverty, seven for bankruptcy and six for unemployment. In fact, love affairs have turned out to be third biggest kill ers after family problems and illness. This is well reflected in the fact that 135 suicide victims fall in the age group of 0-29.
The data shows that 89 people commit suicide every day due to family problems while 72 do it because of illness. Cancer has turned out to be the biggest reason for which most suffering from illness commit suicide, followed by paralysis and AIDS.
Abetment of suicide
Suicide note
Suicide note not enough proof of abetment: Bombay HC
Swati Deshpande, TNN | Aug 28, 2013
The Bombay high court on Tuesday observed that a suicide note alone was not enough proof in a case of abetment of suicide and dismissed an appeal against acquittal in one case. MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Tuesday observed that a suicide note alone was not enough proof in a case of abetment of suicide and dismissed an appeal against acquittal in one case. In the absence of independent evidence to prove a case of abetment, Justice A H Joshi dismissed the appeal filed by the victim's family.
The judge was hearing an appeal filed by the family of a suicide victim against the acquittal. The appeal, filed last year by one Sunil Bhavsar, challenged a sessions court verdict of acquittal. His lawyer argued that it was a case in which a woman was pushed into committing suicide and that a suicide note she left behind "proved the abetment charge". She was harassed and threatened, the lawyer argued.
The case was from Nashik and the lawyer said a complaint was filed in 2010 with the Nashik police about the harassment and threats she faced that led to her eventual suicide. Hence, the abetment to suicide charge is proved, he argued and the acquittal ought to be overturned.
The state did not file an appeal. The appeal itself was dismissed, by default, by the HC earlier in March 2013 as the lawyer for the appellant had not turned up on a date when it was scheduled for a hearing.
On Tuesday, when the lawyer for the victim's family stressed on the suicide note and threats she allegedly received before the suicide, Justice Joshi said, "This is no mathematical equation, that a suicide note plus threat equals abetment...If harassment is proved, show the proof," the HC said. The judge said, "A threat to kill is not abetment. (Giving) An advice to kill is also not abetment."
In case of a suicide, higher courts have held that in each case the circumstances and evidence is crucial to decide whether there was abetment, which would involve acts by another person to actually instigate the person into committing suicide, the SC has held.
WHAT THE SC HAS HELD
"If it appears to the Court that a victim committing suicide was hypersensitive to ordinary petulance, discord and difference in domestic life quite common to the society to which the victim belonged and such petulance, discord and difference were not expected to induce a similarly circumstanced individual in a given society to commit suicide, the conscience of the Court should not be satisfied for basing a finding that the accused charged of abetting the offence of suicide should be found guilty."
Lovers’ tiff can’t be abetment of suicide: SC
Prosecution Must Prove Intent, Knowledge
Dhananjay Mahapatra TNN
A boy proposes to a girl. She rejects it. Feeling humiliated, the boy commits suicide. Should she be prosecuted for abetment of suicide?
Actress Jiah Khan’s suicide has again brought to fore a question — what constitutes abetment of suicide? — which has been discussed extensively by the Supreme Court through the decades.
The Supreme Court has consistently held that a word uttered in a fit of anger or emotion without intending to trigger a step as extreme as suicide can’t be said to be abetment of suicide.
The Supreme Court has also consistently clarified that to prosecute a person for abetment of suicide, prosecution has to prove that the accused had the intention and knowledge that a specific act on his part could trigger suicidal tendency in the victim.
Normal marital skirmishes or what the court put it as “normal wear and tear of marriage” could not be counted as a reason for abetment of suicide by a partner.
In that case — State of West Bengal vs Orilal Jaiswal [(1994) 1 SCC 73] — the SC had cautioned that the court should be very careful in assessing the facts and circumstances of each case and the evidence for purpose of finding whether cruelty meted out to the victim had in fact induced her to commit suicide.
“If it appears to the court that a victim committing suicide was hypersensitive to ordinary petulance, discord and differences in domestic life quite common to the society to which the victim belonged and such petulance, discord and differences were not expected to induce a similarly circumstanced individual in a given society to commit suicide, the conscience of the court should not be satisfied for basing a finding that the accused charged of abetting the offence of suicide should be found guilty,” it had said.
Three years ago, the SC in S S Chheena vs Vijay Kumar Mahajan had said there had to be a positive act on the part of the accused to instigate the victim to take the step of taking her own life.
“Abetment involves a mental process of instigating a person or intentionally aiding a person in doing of a thing. Without a positive act on the part of the accused to instigate or aid in committing suicide, conviction cannot be sustained.”
In its 2001 judgment (Ramesh Kumar vs Chhattisgarh), the court dealt with a classic case. After a quarrel, the husband told the wife — “you are free to do whatever you wish and go wherever you like”.
The wife committed suicide and the husband faced abetment charges. The court quashed the charges and said: “The present one is not a case where the accused had by his acts or omission or by a continued course of conduct created such circumstances that the deceased was left with no other option except to commit suicide, in which case instigation may have been inferred. A word uttered in the fit of anger or emotion without intending the consequences to actually follow cannot be said to be instigation.”
The Times of India View
The Pancholi decision on to abetment book Suraj of suicide charges has surprised even legal experts, given the way similar cases have failed to stick in courts. A relationship going awry and ending in death is tragic. But just because one person from that relationship has survived does not mean that he (or she) can be automatically assumed to be guilty of pushing the other person towards death. Cases like this are different from a regular criminal case and need much more careful and sensitive handling to pre-empt charges of haste and harassment.
The Jiah Khan suicide (2013)
Experts pick holes in Jiah suicide abetment case
Vijay V Singh, Rebecca Samervel & Bharati Dubey, TNN | Jun 13, 2013
The Times of India’s view
On the face of it, this seems to be a case of a relationship gone terribly sour. The police are not here to impose morality; their job is to enforce the law. And by arresting (her boyfriend) Suraj Pancholi they seem to have confused their role. Unless they have specific evidence to show that Pancholi actively instigated Jiah's suicide, they have no business arresting the 22-year old or charging him with abetment to suicide.
The court should give him bail right away. The Supreme Court has repeatedly made it clear that a mere lovers' tiff cannot be sufficient to invoke such a serious charge. The apex court should also frame strong guidelines to ensure that such situations are not used by police as an excuse for harassment or as a money-making opportunity.
Lawyers’ views
Lawyer Ameet Naik handled the Navin Nischol case in which the actor was acquitted despite his wife leaving behind a suicide note blaming him (in this case, legal experts are not even sure whether Jiah Khan's letter can be treated as a suicide note). "A mere letter is not reason enough to arrest him. In the Navin Nischol case, there was a suicide note but the prosecution was unable to establish real mens rea (intention) in abetment. There could be several other reasons for the suicide. Police needs to find if there is circumstantial evidence before making such arrests," Naik said.
Getting more failproof?
It might seem like many kids are committing suicide today because the rat race is steadily getting worse.
The truth, however, is that the `good old days' of forty-odd years ago saw a much higher rate of suicides due to `failure in examination', according to NCRB data. The situation then improved dramatically, before apparently worsening again. Could the introduction of the 10+2+3 system in 1977 have helped ease the pressure on students by putting in place a uniform system which replaced different schooling systems and also adding one additional year of schooling? Perhaps. Today's suicide rates due to exam failure may actually be closer to this period if one considers the student population rather than the overall population, since a much larger section of the population are students now.
Farmers' suicides
No let-up in suicides by farmers
Deeptiman.Tiwary @timesgroup.com New Delhi:
[The Times of India] Aug 03 2014
j A look at government data since 1995 to 2012 shows that no party has succeeded in putting a stop to this scourge.
In fact, in its previous stint in power the NDA fared worse than the Congres. It saw a 31% increase in farmer suicides compared to the previous regime. Under UPA's next five years the figure marginally increased by 2%.
Among states, Maharashtra has the worst record for farmer suicides. During 1995-1999, BJP-Shiv Sena regime saw 10,000 farmers end their lives. From 1,083 farm er suicides in 1995, the re gime witnessed 2,409 farmer taking their lives in 1998.
The following Congres regime was worse. Between 1999 and 2003, over 16,000 farmers committed suicide in the state. In the next nine years of Congrss-NCP rule in Maharashtra, 33,702 farmers ended their life.
In Madhya Pradesh, BJP's second showcase state after Gujarat, the situation has been no better. During the Congres regime of 19982003 under Digvijaya Singh, over 13,000 farmers committed suicide. Since then over 22,000 farmers have ended their lives in MP under the BJP regime.
In Andhra Pradesh, both TDP and Congres, which have ruled the state during the period, sail in the same boat. During TDP's regime of 1995-2003, over 16,000 farmers committed suicide. In the following 10-year regime of the Congres's YS Rajasekhara Reddy and others this figure increased to over 21,000.
In Karnataka, between 1995 and 1999 under Janata Dal government, over 10,000 farmers committed suicide. This increased to 12,000 in the next regime under Congres. Between 2004 and 2012, under two years of Congres and rest of BJP rule, over 18,000 farmers ended their lives.
Gender: Men outnumber women
Men outnumber women when it comes to suicides
The Times of India Sunitha Rao R,TNN | Jul 23, 2014
Of the 1.34 lakh people who committed suicide in the country in 2013, 64,098 were men and 29,491 were women as per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) Report 2013. The overall male:female ratio of suicide victims for the year was 67.2:32.8, showing a marginal increase of male and marginal decrease of female ratio as compared to 2012 (66.2:33.8).
The proportion of boys to girls (up to 14 years of age) was 53.5:46.5 in 2013 as compared to 48.4:51.6 in 2012. Over 80,000 were in the 15-44 age group, the most productive years of human life. Youths (15-29 years) and lower middle-aged people (3044 years) were the prime groups resorting to the extreme step. Around 34.4% of suicide victims were youths in the 15-29 age group and 33.8% were middle-aged people in the 30-44 age group.
In India, as many as 15 suicides took place every hour last year. In 48.6 per cent of suicide cases, the causes are unknown. According to Dr G Gururaj, head of department, epidemiology, Nimhans, prevention of suicide becomes difficult if the reasons remain unknown.
"The reasons attributed by NCRB for reported suicides are vague. A blanket head like family problems does not convey much. Besides, it has only captured the cases reported, whereas many suicides go unreported. There would be a minimum 10 attempts before actual suicide. Not every suicide is an impulsive act. The person who does it might even have thought about it for at least two years but the warning signs may have been ignored by family members," says Dr Gururaj.
Any rapid transformation in society is accompanied by stress and it's never smooth, says Dr A Jagadish, psychiatrist from Abhaya hospital. "Economic downturn and relationships are major issues among those who come with depression. If an adult man thinks of self-harm, he does inflict it most often," he adds.
A 42-year-old patient of his attempted suicide thrice as he found it difficult to cope with his brother's unemployment and related problems, he recalls.
Dr S G Murali Raj, head of the department of psychiatry, Manipal Hospitals, says women can manage a relationship breaking up better than men. "Suicides among men can also be attributed to alcohol-induced depression. Men are more prone to alcohol addiction leading to poor impulse control," he adds.
Health-related suicides alarmingly high in AP
TNN | Jul 1, 2013
HYDERABAD: Disease pushed more people in Hyderabad and rest of the state to end their lives than in any other state in 2012, according to data recently released by National Crime Records Bureau.
The data also shows that illness has become the single largest cause for suicide in the state.
Andhra Pradesh recorded 4,232 suicides last year that was attributed to illness, the highest for any state in the country. Of the total 14,238 suicides reported in the state during 2012, illness was found to be largest causative factor accounting for 30% of the deaths and far outnumbering poverty or unemployment, which were said to be cause for 1,308 suicides.
The state also topped the national chart in 2011 and registered a slight increase this year.
Also, of total suicides in the state, 5,094 were in the high productivity age group of 30-44 years, second only to Maharashtra which reported 5,311 suicides — the highest in the country — which experts say is not a good sign for any economy.
Major diseases driving people to commit suicide include AIDS, cancer, paralysis and mental illness. While 145 suicides were attributed to AIDS, 134 cancer victims killed themselves. The figures for these two diseases are also highest in the country. Mental illness resulted in 1,162 suicides.
"Despite widespread education there still is stigma associated with diseases like AIDS. Learning about the diagnosis itself could drive people to take the extreme step, particularly women. But in the case of cancer-related suicides, it is high treatment costs," said Dr Sukanya Rao, a private practicing gyneacologist in the city.
"Despite existence of schemes like Arogyasri in the state, we get to hear from relatives of deceased that they were unaware of their options. Creating awareness about such schemes is an important aspect of intervention," she added.
A senior police officer on anonymity explained that intervention may not be possible for government due to the nature of investigations being carried out by the police.
Wife’s Suicide: Cruel man not always guilty
From the archives of The Times of India 2010
New Delhi: A husband found to have tortured his wife cannot be automatically held guilty of abetment of her suicide, the Delhi high court has said. HC made the observation on an appeal filed by a man challenging the judgment of a lower court which had convicted him of torturing his wife and abetting her suicide.
‘‘Merely because the court has held that Shailender (husband) is guilty of subjecting wife to cruelty and has convicted him under Section 498-A IPC (cruelty), by itself, would not be sufficient to convict him under Section 306 (abetment of suicide) as well,’’ Justice A K Pathak held. ‘‘Conviction of Shailender under Section 498-A is maintained. But his conviction under Section 304-B IPC and sentence awarded therein are set aside,’’ the court said.
Sonia, a student of Delhi College of Engineering, committed suicide in 2005. Cops found that she didn’t share a good relation with her husband who used to harass her. The trial court had convicted him for subjecting her to cruelty and said this forced her to commit suicide. But HC noted, ‘‘The utterances to the disliking of the deceased and the other acts of Shailender may be sufficient to attract ingredients of offence under Section 498-A, but it would not be sufficient to presume that he had abetted her suicide.’’
The world's suicide capital?
India is world's suicide capital with 2.6L cases/ yr
New Delhi
TIMES NEWS NETWORK The Times of India Sep 05 2014
India records by far the largest number of suicides in the world, accounting for nearly a third of the global total and more than twice as many as China, which is second on the list.
India also has the highest rate of suicides among young people — those aged 15 to 29 years.
These were among the sobering facts revealed in a report released by the WHO, “Preventing Suicide, A Global Imperative”. The report noted that an estimated 8 lakh suicide deaths occurred worldwide in 2012. It is the second leading cause of death in 15-29-year-olds.
In 2012, India recorded nearly 2.6 lakh suicides, dwarfing China’s 1.2 lakh.
India’s overall rate of suicides (incidents per lakh population) was 12th at 20.9. The worst countries on this parameter were North and South Korea, Guyana, Lithuania and Sri Lanka. Hungary, Japan, the Russian Federation and Belarus also had higher suicide rates than India. The Scandina vian countries, Sweden, Norway and Denmark — often perceived as societies with high suicide rates — had much lower rates.
In richer countries, three times as many men die of suicide as women, but in low and middle-income countries, the male-to-female ratio is much lower at 1.5 men to each woman. Globally, suicides account for 50% of all violent deaths in men and 71% in women. n India, the ratio was about I 1.6 with close to 1.6 lakh men committing suicide in 2012 compared to just under 1 lakh women. In four countries in India's immediate neighbourhood -China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan -women outnumbered men among suicides. Only in Iraq and Indonesia was the proportion of women to men among those committing suicide higher than these countries.
India, despite its horrific statistics, has actually seen a decline in the tendency to commit suicide since 2012, with the rate declining by 9.2% over this 12-year period.China, in the same period, saw its suicide rate drop by 59%.
India is a clear exception to the global pattern of the 70+ age group having the highest suicide rates. At 21.1 per lakh population, suicides among this age group are only about as common as among the entire population. Risk factors associated with the health system and society at large include difficulties in accessing health care and in receiving the care needed, easy availability of the means for suicide, inappropriate media reporting that sensationalizes suicide and increases the risk of “copycat“ suicides, and stigma against people who seek help for suicidal behaviours, or for mental health and substance abuse problems.
See also
Suicides: India Suicides in Tamil Nadu
