Nobody commits suicide for fun. Nobody rolls out of bed one day and thinks, “Let me end my life for entertainment.” Nobody starts their day wanting to jump from a building, hang from a rope, or swallow poison.
So, when a student dies by suicide, the question is not whether they were “too sensitive” or “mentally weak.” The real question is this: What exactly was done to them before that day?
The recent viral video of Awais Sultan did not enter the bloodstream naturally. Suicide never does. Something was happening inside classrooms, homes and minds; something heavy enough, constant enough and painful enough to convince a young person that death felt like the only release. What pressures shaped his days? What was said in those rooms? And most importantly, who was listening?
In Pakistan, we have built an education system that confuses oppression with discipline and pressure with preparation. Students are treated like defective machines and suspects under interrogation that must be fixed through insults, threats, and shame. Teachers scream, mock and belittle, then call it “character building”. Institutions watch all of this happen and do nothing, as long as exam results produce a sea of A* and signal “top marks” on paper. Then there is attendance: miss a few days, and you face detention, exam bans, public humiliation and a failed transcript.
What science even supports that logic? A student is drowning, and instead of asking why, the system demands a signature, a percentage, and an explanation that sounds “valid enough”. Instead of support, they get warnings. Instead of help, they get ultimatums. And when the breaking point comes, and all coping mechanisms fail, we accuse the student. We say they should have spoken up.
Spoken up to whom? Where were the counseling rooms? Where were the trained mental health professionals? Any institution that produces academic achievers while also producing suicides is not successful; it is violent. Students are not your drilling machines. They are not containers for adult frustration. They are breathing human beings.
Every educational institution in Pakistan must be forced to provide counseling rooms staffed by trained professionals, enforce zero tolerance for emotional abuse and retrain teachers to see that fear terrorises. Because once a student is dead, no prayer, excuse, or justification will matter.
Yumna Zahid Ali
Karachi
