Pakistan abolishes colonial-era law on suicide

Islamabad: Pakistan on Friday adopted an amendment to the colonial-era criminal laws to abolish the punishment for attempted suicide. Pakistan’s parliament had repealed Section 325 of the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860 about penalising suicide attempts. Under the section, suicide or attempted suicide was an offence punishable by one year of imprisonment, fine or both.

It states: “Whoever attempts to commit suicide and does any act towards the commission of such offence, shall be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both.” The enacted law was completed when President Dr Arif Alvi endorsed the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill 2022, abolishing the punishment for attempted suicide, according to the announcement issued by the President’s House.

Earlier, the amendment in the law was introduced by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and it was passed by the Senate in May this year.

According to the objective of the amendment, “the issue of suicide ought to be dealt with as a disease and should be treated as one”.

There is lack of authentic data on the actual number of people committing suicide each year, but according to an old report of the World Health Organisation (WHO), the estimated rate of suicide in Pakistan in 2019 was 8.9 per 100,000 people.

In other words, around 19,331 people killed themselves in 2019.

It is believed that the actual number should be much higher as a lot of cases are not reported to avoid investigations by police.

Decriminalization may help to get the true picture of the annual suicides in the country.

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