Questionable circumstances: 11-year-old student hangs himself

ISLAMABAD: An 11-year-old boy committed suicide on Tuesday by hanging himself from a tree in Islamabad’s Merabadi area near Sector G-11. A police official said the child* came from a poor family and his father worked as a security guard and he studied at a seminary in Jhangi Syedan area. Shalimar police said that the initial investigation revealed that the boy’s family was pressuring him to go to the seminary but the boy did not want to. The boy on Tuesday then hanged himself from a tree near his house. Police suspect that this could be reason for his suicide. Police shifted the body to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) for a post-mortem but the family did not allow the procedure, claiming they did  not want it.

*Name withheld to protect identity

Published in The Express Tribune, November 9^th, 2016.