In 2018, number of suicides outstripped road accident deaths

NEWDELHI: In 2018, seven persons killed themselves every day in the Capital outstripping deaths due to road accidents, according to data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). Most people killed themselves over troubled relationships, calling into question society’s preparedness in dealing with such cases.

While there were 2,526 cases of suicides in Delhi, a figure that does not capture the number of attempts to suicide cases. The NCRB analysed all suicide cases in the Capital and were able to point out broad reasons for the extreme steps in 66% of them.

RELATIONSHIPS AND ILLNESSES

The findings reveal that 456, or 27%, of cases in which the reasons were identified, rocky “relationships” played a major role. These included 334 cases of “marriage-related” issues, 56 instances of “non-settlement of a marriage”, eight instances of “divorce” and 14 cases of “extramarital or illicit relationships”. “Family problems” formed the basis of 787 cases.

Dowry demands and dowryrelated allegations led to another 52 women and six men killing themselves, respectively. Rajat Mitra, a clinical psychologist said, “In today’s times, relationships end faster than they used to earlier. The people involved feel there is little hope of it working out.” Illnesses — prolonged, terminal or mental — was the primary reason in 218 cases.

INFERTILITY, DRUGS, JOBS, EXAMS

There were 10 instances of suicide which were attributed to infertility and all of them were women. There were also 62 cases of drug abuse or alcohol addiction. The NCRB found them all to be men.In 98 case, people killed themselves over unemployment, and 30 more due to “poverty”.

A total of 44 students killed themselves due to failure in exams. “Recently, I met a class 12 girl with suicidal tendencies. She had scored 89%, but her father said that he was trying to ‘motivate’ her by saying that anything less than 90% was failure,” Mitra said.