ABSTRACT

Suicide is a critical subject for social inquiry; the recent report shows that suicide rate is in the Chitral both upper and lower. The young population is now becoming more vulnerable and prone to this act day by day instead of using this prime phase of live positively and productively. Unfortunately, this issue of suicide is being ignored, unaddressed and undefined. The role of relevant authorities (health and police) to address the issue in the district is also unsatisfactory. The aim of this study is to identify the prevailing risk factors. For this purpose, I studied five years (2016 to 2021) of data, obtained from district police Chitral. On the base of this data, family conflict and mental illness are the major prevailing risk factor which are contributing to suicide. While after analysis of focus group discussion and interviews, domestic violence, depression, family pressure, high expectation from family and society, generation gap between parent and youngsters, force marriages, child and unmatched marriages, androcentrism were identified as major factors which led to commit and attempt to suicide. At the institutional level, lack of basic mental health facilities and mental health unit, flawed litigation and investigation are barriers to reduce and prevent suicide. While flawed, investigation process in case of domestic violence and family conflict are the major cause of leading to suicide. Awareness about suicide and mental health issue through education, religious centers, engaging community, proper investigation and trail of incidences, establishing police complaint cells are identified as measures to reduce or preventive strategies of suicide.