PATNA: A 17-year-old girl made three attempts to kill herself by flinging herself before speeding trucks on a highway in Ranchi, but was saved each time. A suicide note recovered from her revealed she was fed up with her father’s insistence that she clear the IIT entrance test even though it was too hard for her to remember her lessons.
“I love you all very much. This is not a road accident. This is a suicide,” wrote the girl at the end of her suicide note written in Hindi. “Papa, you sometimes ask me to clear IIT entrance test and sometimes to secure 75 per cent marks (in intermediate examinations). I cannot do anything due to the tension,” said the letter she addressed to her parents and two brother.
Police said the girl was seen running across the ring road in Sithio area of the Jharkhand capital on Friday night, making several speeding heavy vehicles dodge her riskily. Bystanders were shocked by her behaviour when she kept standing on the busy road even after a speeding truck swerved dangerously to avoid hitting her. Some of them caught hold of her during her third failed bid to kill herself by running in front of a truck.
Rashmi (name changed to protect identity) is the only daughter of an official working with the road construction department of Jharkhand government in Dhanbad, said police. The people who saved her found her clutching a suicide note and brought her to Tupudana police station. Her family, which lives in Ranchi’s Hinoo area, was informed and she was handed over to them.
“I am unable to study. I have tried very hard, but I have failed. Whatever I memorise I forget the next day… I have also forgotten all that I had memorised earlier,” she wrote at the beginning of her suicide note.
In a glimpse of the tensions prevailing in the family, she wrote at one place: “Both my brothers do drama in the house every day. Nobody ever takes my side. Everyone keeps blaming me. Papa, I am not wrong all the time. Please sometimes accept my side of the story. You always get angry with me”.
“This case is just a pointer of the massive psychological crisis today’s teenagers face due to overwhelming family pressure for academic excellence and the endless thrills offered by the world in many intrusive forms,” said Patna-based clinical psychologist Binda Singh. “Attaining the right balance in life and having an atmosphere conducive for proper learning are extremely important for youngsters,” she added.