One-third of suicide victims are youths — report

While `family problems’ drove 8,140 youths (3,728 males and 4,412 females) to immediate termination of life by way of suicide, `prolonged illness’ was the major cause for the crime in the upper middle age persons (2,570 males and 1,251 females) of age 45-59 years, the NCRB figures said.

The data which showed a significant increase of 9.3 per cent with total number of 1,04,713 cases as against 95,829 in 1997 also pointed out that the highest number of suicides were reported from West Bengal with 14,253 and said the state alone accounted for 13.6 per cent to total suicides reported in the country.

West Bengal was followed by Maharashtra with 13,658, Tamil Nadu with 10,982, Karnataka with 10,934, Andhra Pradesh with 9,433 and Madhya Pradesh with 9,428 cases of suicides, the NCRB director said adding the ratio of male, female suicide victims for the year 1998 was 59:41.

Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which have higher population, ported comparatively lower percentage of suicidal deaths in 1998 recording a bare 4.8 per cent and 1.7 per cent respectively of the total number of suicides in the country, Prasad said.

The ratio of male, female suicide victims for the year 1998 was 59:41, the NCRB data said.

The proportion of female victims was comparatively more because of emotional and personal reasons including `suspected and illicit relationship’ (57.9 per cent), `non-settlement or marriage or its cancellation'(63), `not having children’ (71.2), `death of a dear person'(58.7), `dowry dispute'(96.4), `divorce’ (74.2), `illegitimate pregnancy’ (94.1) and `physical abuse’ (72.8), the data said.

It was seen that social and economic causes led most ofthe males to commit suicide whereas emotional and personal causes mainly drove females to end their lives, Prasad said.