By Umashankar Dash
The World Health Organisation estimates 7,27,000 suicide deaths in 2021, more than one in every 100 deaths worldwide. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among people aged 15 to 29. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals aim to cut the suicide rate by a third between 2015 and 2030, yet the world is on course for only about 12 per cent.
India presents a grim picture. The National Crime Records Bureau recorded 1,70,746 suicides in 2024, roughly one every three minutes. Family problems and illness were the leading recorded causes, and daily wage earners made up nearly a third of victims.
Student suicides rose by about 80 per cent in a decade, far outpacing the rise in suicides overall. Every suicide leaves behind a devastated family and many unanswered questions. It is a public health crisis, and researchers say it is preventable, if not completely, then at least to a large extent.
To prevent suicides, three things are essential: a robust mechanism to capture suicide-related data and analysis, accessible mental health care and support systems, and massive community-level awareness. Various agencies work to prevent suicides. Health care professionals provide identification, counselling and mental health support.
Family, friends and community members provide vital emotional support. Media, NGOs and government departments spread information on available resources and try to reduce the stigma around mental health and suicide.
However, one important actor is generally missed when designing suicide-related policies, and that is the police. Their role has five aspects, touching all three essentials. The first aspect is data. Every suicide is recorded in police files as an unnatural death. Police action generally stops after the post-mortem and a broad recording of the reasons.
This is not negligence; it is by design. Police are not trained in mental health issues, and examining relatives of suicide victims requires specialised skills. Eliciting information with empathy, without appearing to blame parents and relatives already suffering from survivor’s guilt, requires a different approach. With proper training, the police could record all details and create data vital for scientific policy formulation.
The second aspect is the bereaved family. Many a time, surviving relatives and parents of a suicide victim feel suicidal. By dealing with them with compassion and referring them to mental health professionals, the police can prevent some suicides. This is the classic gatekeeper role: recognising people at risk and connecting them to help.
The third aspect is suicide attempts. Many suicide victims have a history of attempting suicide, yet these incidents are never properly captured by either the health care system or the police. Better coordination between local police and hospitals can capture such data and feed it into policymaking. The fourth aspect is the abatement of suicide cases.
Grieving families often refuse to believe that the victim took the drastic decision on his own and look for a culprit, putting the police under pressure to register abetment cases. The NCRB recorded 8,893 such cases in 2024, yet in 2022 only 17.5 per cent ended in conviction.
Such misclassification punishes the innocent and distorts suicide data, because a death recorded as a crime is a death whose real causes go unexamined. A sensitive, well-trained police force can establish the truth while helping the family find closure.
The fifth aspect is communication. The police are a major source of information for the media about suicides and their investigation. How they brief the media, in line with WHO and other guidelines, is vital to preventing copycat suicides, reducing stigma and spreading awareness of helplines.
The police already stand at the scene of every suicide in India. It is time they were trained and treated not only as investigators of these deaths, but as gatekeepers who can help prevent the next one.
The writer is Inspector General, Fire & Emergency Service.
