Mumbai:
Mumbai has begun its New Year shocked by the news that two young children have killed themselves over the weekend.
An 11-year-old, Neha Sawant, used her dupatta to hang herself in her bedroom in the Dombivali area on the outskirts of Mumbai. Neha was alone at home on Saturday afternoon; her body was discovered by her younger sister after she returned from school.
Neha had participated in popular dance reality show Boogie Woogie more than a year ago. Neighbours say Neha wanted to participate in other dance shows, but was dejected because her parents wanted her to focus on her studies. (
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The police and the family deny this. '"She was learning dance till a year ago. That has nothing to do with her death," says Subhash Divekar, a police inspector handling the case.
Neha's father, Narendra Sawant, adds, "When she was small, we sent her to a dance class. When she grew up, we asked her to stop and she was okay with it."
On Monday morning, a class 7 student was found dead in his school's bathroom in Dadar in Central Mumbai. Sushant Patil had used a nylon rope to hang himself at the Shardsashram School. It's suspected that the student brought the rope from his house to his school. Police say the boy had failed in 4 out of 6 subjects.
What can drive such young children to such desperate measures? "In our psychological autopsies we have found three things. One, the child has had very little adult contact; two, he has been suffering from depression for a while; and three, he sees even a small failure or rejection as a huge thing and any small incident that occurs becomes a trigger to attempt suicide," explains psychiatrist Harish Shetty. (
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