Horror of suicide is back to haunt students of Bengaluru during exam season

Bengaluru, April 7: In the last few days, media has been diligently chronicling every personal detail of popular tele-actress Pratyusha Banerjee, who allegedly committed suicide in Mumbai on April 1. Call it the stigma attached to suicide or the mystery behind a person taking the extreme step-any case of suicide is hard to comprehend for all of us.

Moreover, when a celebrity commits suicide it always grabs headlines, sadly.

India's start-up city, Bengaluru, also grapples with the rise in the number of suicide cases among the student community, especially during the exam season.

According to the figures available with Rehabilitation of Anti-Suicide Forum (RASF), an organisation working with students in the city, a total of six students attempted suicide during March in the city.

The students attempted suicide due to exam stress.

After their suicide bids were foiled, the students were counselled by the members of RASF. The forum is supported by the Child Rights Trust (CRT), an NGO working with children.

All the youngsters are students of class ten and are currently writing their board exams.

"These students attempted suicide because of exam stress. They were suffering from exam-related anxiety that pushed them to take such a drastic step. Thankfully, all of them were saved. The months of March and April, the board exam season, see highest number of suicide or attempted suicide cases among the students' community across Karnataka," Nagasimha G Rao, senior member of CRT, told OneIndia.

In one of the cases, a girl decided to end her life because her parents gave her strict instructions to study 18 hours a day before the exams, says a member of RASF.

Experts say the pressure to perform well in the exams is taking a toll on the youngsters.

"Parents are also responsible for the children's plight. They want their kids to score high marks. They have high expectations and put undue pressure on the young minds. Some of these kids can't take so much of pressure.

Surmounting pressure from parents to score high marks causes tension, stress and fear among many students. All these lead children to end their lives," says a member of RASF.

The member of RASF laments schools in Bengaluru and across Karnataka don't have counsellors to help kids to deal with exam-related issues.

The figures pertaining to suicide among students are chilling. An estimated 500 students commit suicide in Karnataka every year.

"The reason behind high rate of suicide among school and college-going kids is academic stress," says Rao.
A total of 560 students committed suicide in Karnataka in 2012, as per the data available with the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The figures stood at 672 in 2013 and 570 in 2014.

OneIndia News