Suicide: Teenager jumps into Gilgit River

She had a quarrel with her brother in the house over a petty issue.

GILGIT:

A teenage girl committed suicide by jumping into the Gilgit River, police said on Tuesday. The 18-year-old girl from Gilgit jumped from the historic wooden bridge at Konodas at about 8pm on Monday, police sources said.

“There were some men close to her, when she jumped,” said Rafiq, a resident of Konodas, who witnessed the girl, clad in a black burqa, jumping into the river. The girl, whose name was withheld by the police for privacy, was studying in matric.

He said it wasn’t clear if she was going to jump, though her acts were suspicious. Police said that her brother came to the police station on Tuesday; he told police that he had a quarrel with his sister in the house over a petty issue.

“I didn’t know that she would end her life over such a petty matter in such a terrifying manner,” police quoted her brother as saying.

Meanwhile, some people have also lodged a report with the police about the missing incident of another woman. More than a dozen people have lost their lives by either deliberately jumping into or being swept away by water currents.

Gilgit-Baltistan has seen a rapid growth in the suicide cases over the years, with the ratio being alarmingly higher among the youth, according to the police.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 10^th, 2011.