Sound family is the need of the hour-17/7/13

More than the stress and strain at the work place, there are issues ranging from problems in the family and worries about one’s personal appearance that force youngsters to resort to the extreme step Many have this impression that high pressure IT jobs are what drive them to suicides. However, it is not so at least going by the past incidents. Investigators say that in most cases disturbances in family life prompt them take the extreme step. Investigators claim that they have rarely come across instances of techies killing themselves due to office stress or career-related issues. Even the issues in personal life are so varied that a definite conclusion is difficult to arrive at. For instance, an obese techie of a reputed IT company immolated himself 18 months ago, reportedly dejected over failure to bring down his body weight. Weighing over 100 kg, 35-year-old Srinivas (name changed) was desperate to become lean and went for various treatments. In January, 2012, the techie killed himself when he was alone in his house at Miyapur. “No specific suicide note was found. But he wrote about his helplessness to reduce body weight and discussing the matter with his friends,” said investigators. In another instance, the motive behind the death of a woman techie at Raidurg in August 2012 was initially believed to be a murder and was eventually established as a suicide. The woman employee, who was married, worked for some time abroad and ended her life within days of returning to Hyderabad by leaping from her office building. The emails and text messages she had received and sent revealed that it was the problems in her personal life that compelled her to take the extreme step, investigators maintain. Differences with life partners and alleged harassment by in-laws, too, are other reasons for suicides in the IT sector. N. Ramie Karthik (27) hanged herself to death in her brother’s house at Shook colony of Kushaiguda just a few days ago. While it is premature to jump at conclusions about the factors that prompted the young techie to kill herself, police have registered a case under Section 498-A (cruelty by husband or in-laws) of the Indian Penal Code against her husband following a complaint lodged by her brother. “We cannot precisely point out the reasons behind her suicide, but her brother maintains that she complained of harassment by her husband and father-in-law. We are probing the allegations,” police said. Police investigations, too, have limitations. Unless a specific complaint is lodged by the victim’s family about office pressure or harassment by bosses as the reason behind death, police will only register a case of suspicious death under Section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Code when a person ‘commits suicide’. “Work pressures and deadlines to perform a task may take a toll on software professionals and perhaps even drive them to frustration if they are already depressed due to problems in personal life,” says a senior police officer, requesting anonymity. Yet, police have not stumbled upon evidence to connect office-related issues with suicides in a single case till now. Marri Ramu http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/sound-family-is-the-need-of-the-hour/article4924968.ece