Our Reporter
Dimapur, Nov. 5 (EMN): India saw a sharp rise in suicide cases in Covid-hit 2020, while the number of road accidents fell significantly, according to the data released by the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB).
The report stated that a total of 1,53,052 suicides -- an average of 418 daily deaths by suicide against 381 in 2019 -- were reported in the country during 2020, which is an increase of 10%.
Nagaland recorded 48 suicide cases in 2020, which is the third-lowest in the country after Ladakh (12 cases) and Manipur (44 cases), while Maharashtra reported the highest cases with 19,909, accounting for 13 per cent of the total cases in the country, followed by Tamil Nadu (16,883), Madhya Pradesh (14,578).
Among the other northeastern states, Assam recorded 3243 cases, 848 in Tripura, 285 in Sikkim, 224 in Meghalaya, 160 cases in Arunachal Pradesh, and 108 in Mizoram.
The report showed that Mizoram and Assam were among the states which reported a significant increase in suicide cases (percentage) in 2020 over 2019, while the highest decrease was reported in Manipur.
The number of suicides per one lakh population in the country during the year was 11.3, which is the highest in 10 years. Andaman and Nicobar Islands reported the highest rate of suicide (45.0), followed by Sikkim (42.5), Chhattisgarh (26.4), and Puducherry (26.3), according to the report.
Data showed that ‘family problems’ and ‘illness’ were the major causes of suicides which accounted for 33.6% and 18.0% of total suicides respectively during 2020. Other major causes are ‘drug abuse/ addiction’ (6.0%), ‘marriage-related issues’ (5.0%), ‘love affairs’ (4.4%), ‘bankruptcy or indebtedness’ (3.4%), ‘unemployment’ (2.3%) ,‘failure in examination’ (1.4%), ‘professional/career problem’ (1.2%) and ‘poverty (1.2%) and others.
Out of the total 1,085,32 male suicides, maximum suicides were committed by daily wage earners (33,164), followed by self-employed persons (15,990) and unemployed persons (12,893). A total of 44,498 females committed suicides during 2020 in the country, out of which 22,372 were housewives, 5,559 students and 4,493 daily wage earners.
A total of 22 transgender committed suicide, out of which five were ‘unemployed persons’ and nine ‘daily wage earners’, two each ‘self-employed persons’ and ‘housewives’, while four fall under the 'other’ category.
The report also stated that a total of 121 cases of mass or family suicides were registered during the year 2020 and the maximum such cases were reported in Tamil Nadu (22 cases, 45 deaths) followed by Andhra Pradesh (19 cases, 46 deaths), Madhya Pradesh (18 cases, 39 deaths), Rajasthan (15 cases, 36 deaths) and Assam (10 cases, 10 deaths) during 2020.The NCRB report stated that every year, more than one lakh people commit suicide in India due to various problems including career problems, sense of isolation, abuse, violence, family problems, mental disorders, addiction to alcohol, financial loss, chronic pain and others.