Data on Suicide
According to data released by the interior ministry, 175 Pakistanis
committed suicide last year, as compared to 155 in 2005. Of these,
eight were in Punjab, 145 in Sindh and 22 in the NWFP. This seems
to be surprisingly underestimated. First, almost every day one
reads of one or more suicides occurring somewhere in Pakistan.
Second, a few weeks back there was this news that 52 people had
committed the act in Rawalpindi alone in 2006.
Thus, the figure for one city in Punjab far exceeds that now cited
for the entire province. This shows that the persons responsible
for compiling the data didn’t pay any attention to the big
news about Rawalpindi as a sort of check against gross errors.
It also quotes police sources as saying that the data didn’t
provide the actual number of crime cases since many incidents
were not reported. That sounds true. However, the story from Rawalpindi
had clearly stated that the figure of 52 was based on data gathered
from the city’s 25 police stations. It isn’t understandable
from where did the ministry get such erroneous data, if not from
the primary source, i.e., the police stations?To help the government,
I decided to conduct some research by going through the 30 issues
of Dawn that appeared in the 31 days between Jan 16 and Feb 15
(no issue on Jan 31 due to Ashura). The reports show that during
this interval 21 people committed suicide. Of these, there were
four in the NWFP and Fata, eight in Punjab and nine in Sindh but
none in Balochistan and Azad Kashmir.
The ages ranged from 14 to 60, with most people being in their
20s. The males greatly outnumbered the females and the reasons
for the suicides were split almost evenly between ‘domestic
problems’ and ’joblessness/poverty’ and an assortment
of others, including anger of one girl over her father’s
refusal to get a cable TV connection and a young man for not being
bought a motorbike.
Also, on Sunday to Wednesday, the rate of suicides averaged nearly
twice of what it was from Thursday to Saturday. Thus, Wednesdays
were the worst, with a total of five cases and Saturdays the safest,
with just one suicide during the month. In Punjab, four died in
Lahore and three in Toba Tek Singh out of a total of eight, with
none in Rawalpindi (which, from the Jan 18 figures for 2006 would
be expected to turn up about four victims in as many weeks). In
Sindh, three out of the nine suicides were in Karachi. ”It
must be emphasised that these figures would not necessarily represent
the average monthly figure for previous 12 months, but the trends
should be fairly representative. Furthermore, the actual figure
of suicides in this (or any other) period is likely to have been
many times greater than reported in any newspaper, going by the
lessons drawn from the Rawalpindi statistics.
”At 52 confirmed cases out of two million in Rawalpindi,
the figure for 160 million Pakistanis extrapolates to 4,160 suicides
(or somewhat less, since rural areas may have a lower rate). And,
going by police apprehensions, it could easily be 50-100 per cent
greater.”
While I realise that the responsibility of the interior ministry
in case of suicides probably lies only in providing the data and
not in doing something to alleviate their causes, but it must
at least ensure the validity of these data. It would perhaps be
the job of the minister for social welfare to help curb the problem.
Thus, a scientific study should be first carried out to determine
the exact number of people ending their lives and the precise
causes. Only then could a policy be formulated to lessen this
scourge. A questionnaire should be prepared for distribution t
every police station to elicit requisite information for routing
to the social welfare people through the interior ministry.
Some of the particulars could be: age, gender, education level,
reason for suicide, history of significant mental or physical
illness, whether suicide was ever attempted before or a warning
of such intention was given, day and season, geographical location,
religiosity, etc.
Khalid Chaudhry
Karachi
SBP Converted as World Bank
As Pakistanis we have the central bank named as State bank of
Pakistan which controls the monetary system of the country.But
it is sorry to note that since 1994,Governors and Deputy Governors
have been appointed from the IMF and World bank who converted
all policies of SBP as World Bank policies totally in the interest
of their Masters and not for the benefit of common masses of Pakistan.First
of all they adopted the adhoc policies to appoint Adisers, Senior
Advisers, chief Advisers etc on Contract basis on very high packages
neglecting the benefits of very experienced and senior officers
working in the bank for very long time.Secondly all senior and
experienced officers were kicked from the services and in their
places very junior and un experienced officers were taken up on
high packages most of whom left the bank and joined some other
more lucrative jobs and took all the files and information with
them.Thirdly on the Board of the bank no person from rural areas
of Sindh and other Provinces have been nominated as if the bank
is belonging to only big cities which serve the interest of big
people or wealthier class of the Country.Fourtly the newly appointed
Deputy Governor does not seem to be Pakistani as his carier reported
in the monthly SBP news letter indicates international and out
of Pakistan Service experience.Is there any authorty to search
out these anti country policies and make them national oriented
and beneficial for poor Pakistanis.
Dr Ali Akbar M.Dhakan
Karachi
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