Marriage pressure led to suicide pact by Bangalore girls

The mystery surrounding the suicide pact by four girl students in Bangalore has been solved with the lone survivor revealing that the pressure of marriage on one of them by her parents had forced them take the extreme step.

The survivor Hamsaveni, who is declared out of danger, told doctors of the private hospital, where she is convalescing, that there was marriage proposal to her friend Ammu and her parents had decided to marry her off.

“Ammu’s parents had decided to marry her to her maternal uncle. She had refused, saying she wanted to continue her studies. When Ammu’s parents did not relent, she mentioned it to me and my friends Divya and Jayanthi on Friday evening. We decided to commit suicide on Saturday after attending classes”, she said.

According to Hamsaveni, all the four, who were students of tenth standard, met at their school on Saturday. “Ammu had brought packets of insecticide and Jayanthi had brought two glasses for mixing the insecticide with water and drinking. After the classes, we went to the railway quarters and sat talking for a while”, she said. Later, Ammu wrote a suicide note in Kannada and all of them signed on the letter.

Next, all of them consumed the insecticide. “I was the last one consume it. We started to vomit and could sense being put in an autorickshaw”, she said.

Meanwhile, Chairperson of Karnataka Women’s Commission Pramila Nesargi collected Hamsaveni’s statement and met the parents of Ammu.
Nesargi told reporters that Ammu’s parents had admitted that they wished to marry her, but did not think she would take such a drastic step. “In order to prevent adolescent girls committing suicide, a counselling centre is the need of hour”, she suggested.