Heart-wrenching: The strange case of student suicides

In Lower Dir, families mourn dedicated sons.

TIMERGARAH:

On March 31, Habibullah’s parents were expecting their son to bring sweets for clearing the examinations at his school in Lower Dir. But, for their son’s failure, they paid with his life.

In the village where Sufi Muhammad’s Tehreek-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Muhammadi had sought to ban all forms of education, deeming it “un-Islamic”, three hardworking and committed students ended their lives after failing their exams. Grade five student Habibullah and grade seven student Abdullah swallowed poison and grade eight student Ahmad hung himself.

“On result day, Habibullah had told us that if he was promoted in school this year, he will bring sweets for us. Instead of sweets, we received his body,” Habibullah’s visibly overwhelmed father, who belongs to Manyal village in Madyan sub-district, told The Express Tribune.

Upon returning home in the afternoon that fateful day, Habibullah’s father found that while Habibullah had failed the examinations, his younger brothers Shahidullah and Rehanullah had passed. Habibullah wasn’t home, so the concerned father decided to go to his son’s favourite spot, the one where he used to sit whenever he was upset.

“But as I stepped out of the house, I saw Habib dragging his feet towards the house with the help of his friend. He looked very pale and tired and told me that he wanted to go to his uncle’s house,” the father said.

They went to his uncle Said Badshah’s house, where his condition worsened and his father and uncle rushed him to the hospital.

“I put him into the car and took him to the Government Lal Qila Hospital in Maidan. Unfortunately, there was no doctor on duty,” Badshah said.

He said he went to the doctors’ colony nearby but there too no doctor was available.

They then took Habibullah to Timergarah District Headquarters Hospital, where doctors admitted him to the emergency section. But despite all efforts, the boy’s life could not be saved.

Ahmad’s family is just as distraught at their loss.

“My son was 16, an intelligent student and never failed any class,” Ahmad’s father said dejectedly. “He was extraordinary. In the mornings, he used to get religious education and after that he attended school.”

In the evenings and on days he was off from his two schools, he would help his brother at his shop.

“But the day he failed, he was so upset he couldn’t go anywhere.”

Published in The Express Tribune, April 7^th, 2012.