delhi

Updated: May 06, 2018 12:46 IST

When the grieving parents of a seven-year-old dengue death victim took the fatal plunge from a four-storey building in south Delhi’s Lado Sarai in 2015, they left behind a single-page suicide note written in black ink and broken English. The note, written by the boy’s father Laxman Rout, barely contained 120 words but provided a peek into the couple’s thoughts.

Rout did not want to leave with a debt. He requested his colleague to return his laptop and official mobile number to his employer. Addressing them under separate headings, Rout bid a good bye to his brother and hoped that his missing father-in-law would return home soon.

Importantly, he stated the reason behind the step. It not only compelled the Delhi government to boost dengue treatment, but ensured no individual was harassed for the suicides.

With a total of 4,000 suicides in 2015 and 2016, Delhi has witnessed more than five people killing themselves every day on an average, as against 360 suicide deaths across the country. Two in every three suicide victims in Delhi were men.

While the Delhi Police does not maintain a record of suicide notes recovered, senior officers estimate that one in every four victims leave behind a note.

Though most suicide notes are hand-written, the city has also seen cases in which victims left behind their last words in the form of mobile phone videos, audio clips or even live streaming their last moments.

Suicide note reflects on personality

Psychiatrist Samir Parikh says that while there are no set parameters to determine what victims write as their last words, the suicide notes reflect their frame of mind.

Minutes before strangling her two-year-old daughter and then hanging herself in west Delhi’s Rajouri Garden in September 2015, Vidhi Chadha, 28, wrote a suicide note requesting that the little girl should be cremated along with her. She also wanted her jewellery to be distributed among the poor. “Most victims display their emotional side in their last moments. They display affection for the people they love the most,” says Parikh.

“ Life is an illusion. It seems like space, all empty. All I want is to live like a bird. I want to sleep in the lap of mother nature.”

-- Sidharth Shankar Mahapatra, 26-year-old student in his suicide note

Mukesh Pandey, the Buxar district magistrate who committed suicide in Delhi NCR last August, left behind a five-minute-long video clip in which the visibly calm and composed officer was seen speaking about the futility of life.

Sidharth Shankar Mahapatra, a 26-year-old postgraduate student at Delhi’s RML hospital, turned philosophical while penning his last words before he hanged himself last September. “Life is an illusion. It seems like space, all empty. All I want is to live like a bird. I want to sleep in the lap of mother nature,” he wrote.

A decade ago, AIIMS doctors had studied 425 suicide cases and analysed 68 suicide notes to conclude that men usually give detailed instructions on how their family should be cared for after they are gone.

Getting heard

The same study had found that most victims leave behind the suicide notes in their pockets or table tops. But many Delhiites have walked an extra step to ensure their last words are read or heard.

A day before BK Bansal and his son committed suicide at their east Delhi home in 2016, the bureaucrat mailed his suicide note to prominent media houses as well as the CBI whose officers he blamed for his fate.

When DM Pandey jumped before a running train in Ghaziabad, he carried a small hand-written note in which he mentioned that the longer suicide note could be found in the form of a video in his mobile phone kept at his room in Delhi’s Leela Palace hotel.

A national level kabaddi player’s wife had not only kept a hand-written suicide note in her pocket, she also separately recorded a 23-minute long audio clip detailing allegations of physical and mental abuse for dowry by her husband and in-laws.

A homemaker in east Delhi’s Mayur Vihar in 2014 had chosen a prominent wall photograph of her husband to write a suicide note in which she blamed her husband of infidelity.

One man in south Delhi had concealed the suicide note in his underwear so that it was not misplaced and was discovered only by the doctors conducting his autopsy.

“When people leave behind a suicide note before attempting suicide, it shows they are high on intent to kill themselves. Unless it is a hurriedly scribbled note, it means the victim was virtually planning about several aspects after their death,” says Parikh.

Important evidence

According to Dependra Pathak, special commissioner of Delhi Police, suicide notes are a “hard piece of evidence”. “If the victim mentions the abettors and if supported by other evidence, they go a long way in helping in prosecution,” says Pathak. Many suicide victims in Delhi understand that. Some of them make sure there is no confusion about the identity and role of the abettors.

When a 19-year-old student killed himself in outer Delhi’s Jaffarpur Kalan in August 2016, he had not written a suicide note, leaving the police unsure of the motive. But when his parents and sister killed themselves less than a month later, they left behind a clearly worded seven-page suicide note that had the names, addresses, phone numbers and roles of middlemen who had allegedly duped them of Rs 35 lakh on the pretext of getting their son a seat in a medical college. It helped the police nab the suspects.

If the victim mentions the abettors and if supported by other evidence, they go a long way in helping in prosecution.

-- Dependra Pathak, special commissioner of Delhi Police

The suicide note prepared by the kabaddi player’s wife led to the immediate arrest of her husband for dowry harassment and abetment of suicide. In 2013, a suicide note left behind a woman who killed herself led to the conviction of her husband against whom she had left behind a detailed suicide note.

In March, a 17-year-old girl in outer Delhi’s Alipur left her suicide note open-ended by mentioning unknown men of driving her to suicide.

“Whichever way I go, I find men. They are spoiling my life so that I cannot do anything,” she had written on the last page of her notebook. But with her parents joining the dots, the police arrested her neighbour for her death.

An exception was BK Bansal who in his suicide note clearly named CBI officers and a politician for the death of everyone in his family. However, the Delhi Police that quickly books and arrests people named as abettors in other suicide notes did not even register an FIR.

Ensuring there is no harassment

There are others who make sure there is no harassment after their death.

So, while requesting that her daughter be cremated along with her, Vidhi Chadha also literally underlined in her suicide note that her husband was innocent and shouldn’t be harassed. “I want him to be my husband if I take birth again,” she wrote.

DM Pandey mentioned that he was killing himself because of frequent quarrels with his wife, but clearly said that no one should be held legally responsible for his suicide. In February, a 26-year-old man in south Delhi began the live-streaming of his suicide bid by saying he alone was responsible for his step.

Not the last word

Under the Indian Penal Code section 306, abetting a suicide can land a convict in jail for up to 10 years. Courts, however, have often observed that an “active role” in compelling someone to commit suicide must be proved for someone to be pronounced guilty.

Two years ago, the Madras High Court even noted that the mere mention of an alleged abettor in a suicide note was not enough to pronounce someone guilty until supported by other evidence.

Forensic expert, KL Sharma, says caution is necessary while taking suicide notes at its face value because his personal experience showed 15-20% suicide notes were fake.

“Some seemed to be planted by the killers who wanted a murder to be passed off as a suicide. In some cases, victims were compelled to write suicide notes before they were killed. Every suicide note is verified by forensic and handwriting experts, but the real evidence of a suicide is found at the crime spot,” says Sharma.