Unemployment forced 78 persons to commit suicide in J&K in 2 years: MHA

Srinagar, Dec 5: The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) Tuesday said that around 78 persons committed suicide in Jammu and Kashmir from 2020 to 2022 by youth due to unemployment.

The Minister of State (MoS) in the MHA Nityanand Rai was replying to a query raised by Member Parliament Vijayakumar who had raised a query that whether the issue of unemployment was the main cause of youth taking extreme steps of suicide in the country.

The MP also sought to know whether there had been a spurt in the number of suicides among the youth during the year 2022 in the country.

While replying to the query, the MoS while presenting the statistics said that 4,88,009 suicides – 1,53,052 in 2020, 1,64,033 in 2021, and 1,70,924 in 2022 were reported throughout the country from 2020 to 2022.

The MoS while presenting the State and UT-wise details of suicides committed by people due to unemployment along with the total number of suicides in the country during 2020, 2021, and 2022, said that NCRB does not publish data on suicides among the youth separately.

As per the data, 10,259 suicides - 3548 in 2020, 3541 in 2021, and 3170 in 2022, due to unemployment were reported across India.

"As per the figures 828 suicide cases including 215 suicides in 2020, 327 in 2021, and 286 in 2022 were reported in UTs," the MoS Home said.

The official statistics revealed that 78 suicides including 46 in 2020, 15 in 2021 and 17 in 2022 were reported in Jammu and Kashmir.

"The responsibility of maintaining law and order, protection of life and property of citizens, rest with respective State governments and the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) compiles and publishes data on suicides in its publication ‘Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India (ADSI)," he said.