Bodies of a boy and a girl have been found hanging from a tree in Kotaro, a suburban village of tehsil Nangarparkar on Thursday. Police have said the bodies are of lovebirds, 18-year-old Meena, who was a ninth class student, and Mithan Kolhi, a student of intermediate.

Police have further said both boy and girl committed suicide after they failed to marry each other. And since in Hinduism, close relatives cannot marry each other, these two could not tie the knot either as both were closely related to each other, the Force explained.

Bodies have been shifted to a nearby hospital while further investigation is underway.   Record increase in suicides have been noticed in Tharparkar in the ongoing year as 20 such incidents have been reported in the last two months from the area so far.

All the efforts made by the government to control suicide rate in Tharparkar have failed since there is only one psychiatrist to cater to the entire population of the area, considered to be the most backward in entire Pakistan. On the other hand, a letter has been recovered from the pocket of one of the love birds in which they have listed the reasons for resorting to such an extreme step. “Please forgive us. But we cannot live without each other,” reads the letter.

Both have also requested for not conducting their postmortem. They have also requested for their burial in the same graveyard. They have further requested that their parents and family members are not caused inconvenience in the name of investigation since they are committing suicide of their free will.

Police said boy and girl had to take their lives when the girl, Meena, was engaged to a man against her will. Their parents, on the other hand, have said if they knew that they loved each other, they would have allowed them to go ahead with their marriage in complete disregard for religious rituals.    

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-INP