Thaindian News

Bhopal, Nov 22 (IANS) As many as 2,500 women were raped in Madhya Pradesh in the last nine months — including 233 who were gang-raped — which works out to an average of nine rapes a day, Home Minister Uma Shankar Gupta told the state assembly Tuesday.

The state also saw 5,700 people committing suicide in the first ten months of 2011, averaging to 19 per day.

The home minister gave the figures in a written reply to a query by Congress member Ramniwas Rawat.

The rape figures are for the period Feb 1-Oct 29, Gupta said.

Baitul district tops the chart with 64 rape cases registered in nine months, while the state capital is also not much safe for woman, coming second in the list with 56 cases of rape.

To another question of Rawat, Gupta said 19 people, on an average, ended their lives each day between Jan 1 and Oct 28 this year.

With 403 suicides each, Jabalpur and Satna districts led the list, and were followed by the state’s financial capital Indore with 311 cases of suicide.

Bhopal was also among top five districts, with 197 cases of suicide.

In a related question by Congress legislator Tulsiram Silavat, the home minister said 492 students - 222 boys and 270 girls - committed suicide in the state in the last two years (November 2009 to October 2011).

“Depression is the major factor of suicides and it is now a worldwide phenomenon. Madhya Pradesh and India is not untouched by it. But while in the western countries, they have recognized the problem, here it is still unrecognised and untreated,” psychiatrist Ruma Bhattacharya told IANS.

“It is also a fact that most of the suicides are by young and teenaged people, so if we want our future to remain safe, a person should be given immediate counselling if his or her activity is not found normal,” she added.