Dang, August 25, (Narayani Rajaure) Dang, August 25 (RSS): On August 5, the Dang Police reported three self- initiated deaths in the district. One case was from Tulsipur sub-metropolis-9, another from Bijauri and the third from Rajpur rural municipality-6. All the deaths were due to poisoning. A 37 year-old man, and the women of 21, and 50- year-old consumed the poison of same nature.
Their families had rushed them to hospitals in failed attempts to save the lives. Police is trying to unearth the reasons behind their harsh decisions to kill selves. After three days, a 12-year-old girl from the Chaudhary community was reported of consuming poison. Though she was brought to the Rapti State Hospital, her life could not be saved.
These incidences only represent at least 209 cases of suicides that the district in State 5 had reported last fiscal year. Minors (16) also constitute the list of victims. Hanging and poisoning were the methods used in these cases. According to Dang Police Chief Superintendent of Police Bel Bahadur Pande, people from the ethnic communities make up the highest number (74) in the figure followed by Dalits (56), Kshetri (27), Brahman (30) and Muslim (12).
Majority of them (189) are married ones. During the police investigations, it has been known that the most of cases were due to poverty as it resulted in the suicides of 97 while 48 were with mental issues and 18 chose suicides as their love affairs reached the jilted state. Domestic violence has been found as one of the provoking factors in suicidal cases as 11 cases had their connections to this.
The District Police Office data shows that in a period between July 17, 2015 and July 16, 2019, a total of 829 people had claimed their lives. Voices of concerns have been expressed from the civic level as well over the growing trend of suicides in the society. They have underlined the need of seeking preventive measures collectively.
Community Police Service Center’s member Nira Yogi, said depression, an outcome of a stressful life due to various reasons, leads to suicide when its takes an acute turn. Yogi underlined the need of launching public awareness. The personal opinion of Vice chair of Federation of Nepali Journalist (FNJ) Bipul Pokhrel is that shallow understanding of life, abuse of technology, erosion of confidence to face unwanted adversities, and over ambition may increase the risk of suicide.
Public Awareness and cultivation of positive thinking in the society is necessary to discourage suicide, according to him. “Depression is imposing cause of suicide and it has several symptoms,” said Dr Kishore Khatri. Dang Chief District Officer Govinda Prasad Rijal sought the contributions from all walks of life to prevent suicide.
He insisted that psycho-social counselling should be focused to discourage suicide. SP Pandey viewed that people living with poverty, fragile mentality, stress, fear and over ambition are more vulnerable to suffer depression “The suicidal rates are growing more than other crimes in the districts,” he said, seeking people’s cooperation to take preventive measures in every community.
