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<\/h3>\n<\/h3>\nBy Zia Ur Rehman<\/p>\n
November 18, 2019<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.trtworld.com\/magazine\/is-development-boosting-a-spike-in-suicides-in-a-remote-pakistani-region-31451<\/a><\/p>\n Local officials have reported a frightening spike in the number of suicides from the Thar Desert region in Pakistan, an impoverished Hindu-majority region bordering India.<\/p>\n Apart from updates on recently opened coal-powered plants, deaths of infants from malnutrition, and the absence of basic health facilities, the country\u2019s mineral-rich region is mostly ignored by mainstream media and government.<\/p>\n The same statistics show that at least 198 people died of suicide in the region in 2018 while 97 killed themselves in 2017.<\/p>\n Recently, a joint suicide emerged. On November 3, the bodies of two Hindu girls \u2013 sisters-in-law \u2013 were found hanging from a tree in the Kehri village in Tharparkar\u2019s Islamkot town.<\/p>\n Both girls, Veeru and Nathu, were married to two brothers and had one child each. The victims\u2019 relatives and police said that their husbands\u2019 intolerable treatment forced the two girls to kill themselves.<\/p>\n In one case in Tharparkar\u2019s Islamkot town in early 2017, a pregnant woman, 35, killed herself by jumping into a well after throwing her two minors to their deaths.<\/p>\n Rights activists and police officials believe that the rise in suicides indicate a trend that had intensified since 2012 when just 24 people took their lives.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a more alarming trend, and police take it very seriously,\u201d said Saqib Ismail Memon, the regional police chief. He said that his department had compiled the statistics of suicides, investigated each case thoroughly and conducted research to understand the underlying causes behind the rise in suicides.<\/p>\n So many reasons why<\/strong><\/p>\n Prolonged spells of drought, domestic violence, bleak employment prospects, failures to pay loans to landlords and micro-credit banks, and the displacement of poor families are some of the key factors behind the rise in the deaths in Thar, according to residents, activists and police officials.<\/p>\n Ali Akbar Rahimoo, an activist associated with Aware, a local rights-based NGO, says that over the past few years, suicides \u2013 or murder-suicides, as sometimes children are killed along with the parents \u2013 have registered an upward trend in the desert region, which faces a drought for a third consecutive year.<\/p>\n A recent study conducted by Aware said that the factors behind most of the incidents of suicides appeared to be poverty, family issues, domestic violence, and psychological disorders.<\/p>\n But researchers and activists working in the region insist that it should not be seen in isolation from the region\u2019s strategic importance and recent developments.<\/p>\n Because of its remote location, proximity to India and past wars with its neighbour, the region has been isolated from the rest of the country with no TV or cellphone coverage and nonexistent transport infrastructure.<\/p>\n The areas most remote regions were only accessible by crab-shaped vehicles, locally called \u2018Khekhro<\/em>\u2019 that crawled over sand dunes.<\/p>\n However, that state of affairs changed some in the 2000s during the government of General Pervez Musharraf, the former army chief, after international feasibility studies sanctioned by Islamabad found that nearly half of the desert contains coal, and suddenly TV and mobile phone towers were installed in the region and\u00a0roads<\/a>\u00a0were built to connect the region to the rest of the country.<\/p>\n \u201cEconomy-wise and sociologically, it was hyper-change for the residents and adversely affected ways of the age-old self-sufficiency, including the barter system,\u201d Rahimoo says. The region\u2019s current economy cannot support the emerging lifestyles and aspirations of its increasing population.<\/p>\n A majority of the residents depend primarily on rain-dependent agriculture and livestock, are unskilled, and it is tough for them to find jobs in the China Pakistan Economic Project (CPEC)-related Thar\u00a0coal projects.<\/a>\u00a0The government asserts how it has already brought significant infrastructure transformation and is set to boost social well-being in the region.<\/p>\n Veenaj Raj, a 16-year old from Malhay Jo Tar village, around 16 kilometres away from the coal mining project\u2019s Gorano reservoir, took his life last year after not being able to find a job in the mining projects.<\/p>\n Raj\u2019s father Veeshu, 60, said that his son had applied for a job, \u201cBut like the dozens of other villagers, he also did not receive any positive response,\u201d he told\u00a0TRT World<\/em>.<\/p>\n According to villagers, Raj was one of the brightest people in the village who could understand the Urdu language \u2013 Pakistan’s national language.<\/p>\n The drought has led men from poor families to migrate to find work on farms or odd jobs.<\/p>\n \u201cThe (suicide) rate in Thar desert is much higher than Karachi, the Sindh province\u2019s capital, which has no match with the poverty-stricken and drought-hit part of the province in terms of population, culture, crime rate and other civic issues,\u201d Rahimoo told TRT World.<\/p>\n \u201cEven in an impoverished neighbourhood of Karachi, one can find some sources of livelihoods, but in the Thar region, no employment is available for local residents who are unskilled and illiterate.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"66709_GettyImages478125043_1574068079773.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/afpakwatch.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/66709_gettyimages478125043_1574068079773.jpg\")