Police Starting Counselling Centre To Avoid Suicide
The police in Coimbatore range have started opening counselling centre in each police station to provide counselling to those having suicidal tendencies. The centre was inaugurated by the Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Coimbatore range, P. Sivanandi, on Sunday at Perur sub-division. According to Mr. Sivanandi, in 2008, the districts of Coimbatore, Erode and the Nilgiris accounted for 2,445 suicides.
Of this, Coimbatore accounted for 1,368, Erode - 806 and the Nilgiris – 271 suicides. The reasons for suicides were varied such as family disputes, debts, bad debts, monetary disputes, illicit relations, love affairs, addictions and so on. Police could start a counselling centre wherein they could offer solution to disputes and counselling in case of problems so that through such measures the suicide rate could be brought down by 10 per cent to 20 per cent. In many cases, people resort to the extreme decision in life owing to lack of avenues to get their problems redressed.
The counselling centres would have a Deputy Superintendent of Police, a lawyer, a social worker, a government servant and a psychiatrist. If the police step in at the right time, suicides due to debt problems and exorbitant rates of interest could be prevented. These centres would function from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and there would be eight centres in Coimbatore district, seven in Erode and five in the Nilgiris district. Deputy Superintendent of Police, Perur, K. Kumarasami, Perur Thavathiru Santhalinga Ramasamy Adigalar, Law College lecturer Thamaraiselvi, Tamil College Principal Umapathy and others took part.
The Coimbatore Rural police on Sunday opened a counselling centre at the office of Deputy Superintendent of Police in Tirupur to provide palliative care to people who have a tendency to commit suicide. “Our aim is to bring down the incidence of suicides in Tirupur,” Superintendent of Police G. Karthikeyan, said. During last year, a total of 263 suicides were reported in Tirupur sub-division limits.
