Mumbai: 137 of state, city’s finest cops killed themselves in last 5 yrs

Mumbai: 137 of state, city’s finest cops killed themselves in last 5 yrs

Priyanka NavalkarUpdated: Sunday, November 03, 2019, 02:55 AM IST
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Himanshu Roy |

Mumbai: Keeping the peace at all times is stressful and it falls to the policeman’s lot to do so. Work pressure is unrelenting and this pushes enforcers of the law to the edge and, unfortunately for us all, some of them decide to end it all. Recent Right To Information (RTI) data reveals that 137 policemen, including five women and a senior police officer from Maharashtra Police, have committed suicide in the last 5 years, with the highest number of such deaths - 36 - being recorded in 2014.

Mental health experts opine that suicide is not the result of one single impulse or rash decision, but is the cumulative effect of several factors over a period of time. Increased workplace stress, long working hours, poor working conditions, constant deployment on VIP protection duty, festivals, family conflicts, illness and constant pressure from seniors have been some of the leading causes of police suicides over the last five-and-a-half years, said an expert. The lack of structural reforms further exacerbates stress, causing depression, experts explain.

Data procured from the police department gives a yearwise break-up of police suicides between January 2014 and June 2019. According to the data, 2014 tops the list, with the most number of police suicides at 36, while 25 and 16 policemen ended their lives in 2015 and 2016, respectively.

These numbers caused the police brass to take notice. Accordingly, from 2017, Mumbai Police began conducting yoga workshops for their officers to educate them on how to deal with stress and get rid of health issues. This measure, however, was not sufficient, with as many as 22 policemen taking the extreme step that year and 29 more ending their lives in 2018. In the first six months of 2019, as many as nine policemen have committed suicide for various reasons, the data reveals.

Police personnel in the 35-45 age group led the list, followed by those in the 45-55 years’ category. While most were constables, some were low-ranking officers and five were women.

To ensure that the policemen are doing well, regular screening for mental health issues during a physical check-up is a must, an expert said. A senior police officer said, “We are trying to make a friendly and approachable environment in the police station, not only for citizens but also for our personnel. If a policeman’s threshold to handle a particular situation is perceived as low, we allot them another case.”

In October, two Mumbai police constables committed suicide for personal reasons. Constable Sudhir Gurav, 46, attached to Powai police station in Andheri (E), hanged himself to death on October 30. Police said Gurav hanged himself from the ceiling fan with a shawl in the office of divisional assistant commissioner of police (ACP) in Powai. Gurav is suspected of having taken the extreme step after his colleagues left the office, around 9.30pm. He left no suicide note.

Earlier, on October 21, Constable Rameshwar Sadashiv Hankare, 29, committed suicide at his residence in Vikhroli. Police recovered a suicide note where Hankare had said he took the extreme step due to personal reasons.

Suicides that made headlines

Himanshu Roy, a top Indian Police Service (IPS) officer and a former chief of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, committed suicide on May 11, last year. He was 54. Roy, who was serving as the additional director general of police in Maharashtra, shot himself with his service revolver at his residence in south Mumbai. A one-page suicide note was recovered from his residence, where Roy had mentioned that he had taken the extreme step because he had been suffering from cancer for the past two years.

Subhadra Pawar, a constable attached to the police headquarters in the Thane Commissionerate, was allegedly found hanging from a ceiling fan of her flat in Kalwa on September 6, 2017. No suicide note was recovered from the spot. Her brother, Sujit Pawar, however, had filed a complaint against Assistant Commissioner of Police Shamkumar Nipunge and her sister’s fiance, Amol Paphale, a constable of Mumbai Police, for harassing and mentally torturing her. Nipunge was later arrested for abetment of suicide.

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