Momal 58th woman to commit suicide in Thar

KARACHI: A seventeen-year-old Momal Meghwar has become the fifty-eighth woman who committed suicide in the current year of 2020 in Thar, the deserted district of Sindh, due to multiple reasons.

Momal Meghwar, a gang-rape victim on Wednesday ended her life by throwing herself in a deep well at village Dalan-Jo-Tarr near Chelhar town of Tharparkar.

According to the official figures near 100 persons committed suicide in the Thar region majority of them women, whose number is about to 60 percent; due to multiple reasons majority of them belong to poor Hindu communities, such as Kolhi, Bhel, Menghwar, and others.

Local social activists consider poverty the main cause of suicides in the area. PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also has taken the notice of the issue and has asked the Sindh Chief Minister’s special assistant, Veerji Kolhi, to investigate the causes of increasing suicides in the area. The villagers took out the body of Momal Meghwar and shifted it to Civil Hospital Mithi for the postmortem. Villager Kheenraj Menghwar claimed that the girl was raped by three people in the mid of July in 2019 and the accused in the case are out on the bail.

The father of Momal and other relatives of the girl while talking to journalists in Mithi town adding they deplored that the victim committed suicide after she was again blackmailed by the same persons. Chelhar police had registered an FIR against Adam Dal, Qaboool Rahimoon, and Sawai Mal Meghwar on the charges of raping the girl. The accused had not only raped her but also filmed the ordeal of the girl when they had taken her home and sexually assaulted her turn by turn, accused the relative of the deceased girl.

According to the then SSP Tharparkar Abdullah Ahmedyar, the initial medical reports had also confirmed the assault on the girl. The Chelhar police on Wednesday on the orders of SSP Tharparkar arrested one Adam Dal after the suicide of the girl but no fresh case was registered against the accused. While the people from various walks of life including rights activists others strongly condemned the gruesome incident and demanded stern actions against those who forced the teenager to take the extreme steps. The people of Meghwar community, as well as workers of various parties, have warned to launch the protest in Tharparkar and other areas to register their protest against such rising cases.