Over 83,000 suicides reported in last 5 years: DGP

Of the total, 2,449 committed by school, college students

The Director General of Police (DGP) on Tuesday informed the Madras High Court Bench here that 83,103 suicides had been reported across the State between January 2009 and August 2014 and of them the highest number of 13,506 suicides was reported within the limits of Chennai city police, followed by 4,168 in Tirunelveli district.

The statistics were placed before Justice N. Kirubakaran who had called for it on September 15 during the hearing of a petition filed by a former principal of a higher secondary school at Manathidal in Thanjavur district to quash a case filed against him by the police for having beaten a class XI student who later committed suicide by consuming poison.

Submitting comprehensive suicide data collected from all the Police Commissionerates as well as offices of the Superintendents of Police in the State, the DGP said that out of 83,103 suicides 2,449 had been committed by students. Nevertheless, only 30 complaints were received against teachers, principals and professors in connection with the student suicides.

The DGP pointed out that Coimbatore district stood third in the number of suicides reported in the last five years by registering 4,133 suicides.

The ranking of the other districts was as follows: Kancheepuram (3,298), Thanjavur (3,257), Kanyakumari (3,046), Tuticorin (2,997), Madurai (2,987), Villupuram (2,751), Dindigul (2,663), Tiruppur (2,374) and Coimbatore city (2,250).

The places where the suicide rate in the last five years was less than the mark of 2,000 were: Tiruchi (1992), Erode (1989), Cuddalore (1957), Theni (1887), Salem (1,770), Nagapattinam (1,751), Virudhunagar (1,735), Tiruvannamalai (1,730), Tiruvallur (1,557), Krishnagiri (1,511), Madurai city (1,454), Sivaganga (1,369), Namakkal (1,348) and Nilgiris (1,305) among many others.

The rate of suicide in the State had been increasing steadily from 12,914 suicides recorded in 2009 to 14,144 in 2010; 14,543 in 2011, 14,864 in 2012 and 15,554 in 2013. While Madurai city police recorded an average of 250 suicides every year since 2009, the figure recorded by Madurai district police was around 500 suicides an year.

The data with respect to almost all the districts in the State showed that the number of suicides had only increased year after year.