A decade-long study by the World Health Organization has found that a suicide is committed somewhere in the world every 40 seconds, Reuters reported. Tragically, one of every three suicides takes place in India.
An Indian commits suicide every two minutes, the report released Thursday stated, adding that young people seemed to be most vulnerable since the maximum suicides in India were committed in the age group of 15-29 years, All India reported.
Although 250,000 people in India killed themselves in 2012, according to WHO, the government's estimates are significantly lower. More men are reported to kill themselves than women in India.
"There are indications that for each adult who died of suicide there may have been more than 20 others attempting suicide," said Shekhar Saxena, the lead author of the WHO report who heads the organization's Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse in Geneva.
"It is an extremely serious problem and it is likely to increase in future because of materialism coming into the society. Social disparity, economic disparity, educational disparity, access to health care is limited and many other reasons all lead to this problem," said Professor MC Misra, Director at the country's premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences. He volunteered, "Recently my own sister's daughter committed suicide for no reason."
"We need to be very proactive in our approach to identify the symptoms because if somebody has attempted suicide once it is likely that he or she will do it again," he cautioned.
However, most suicides in the country could be prevented, WHO stated.
The first step would require India to decriminalize an attempted suicide, which currently arrests and keeps the survivor of an attempted suicide in jail for a year, organizations said. Such draconian and outdated laws inhibit people from seeking much needed support and help externally, experts said.
Dr. Vikram Patel, a psychiatrist with the Public Health Foundation of India, New Delhi said, "Making suicides a health care priority will help since a lot of young Indians are killing themselves and more so in relatively affluent states like Punjab, Kerala and Tamil Nadu."
"Other measures to prevent suicides include restricting access to poisonous material like pesticides, ensuring high railings on bridges (Mumbai's Bandra-Worli Sea Link has witnessed four suicides in two weeks) and controlling the sale of firearms." Patel said, adding that Sri Lanka was able to cut down on its suicide rate by half simply by controlling its sale for pesticides.
