Depression claims five lives in three days in Mumbai

Adding to the already growing number of suicides in the city as many as five people took their own lives in Mumbai between Saturday and Monday this week While the five deceased hail from different backgrounds and different parts of the city prima facie depression seems to be the main cause behind most of the incidentsA psychiatrist says that any family members or friends who notice signs of depression or any indication that someone is about to take such an extreme step should take immediate action to help that person Representational picPeddar RoadAt 330 am on Monday a 44yearold woman was found lying on the ground in a pool of blood after she allegedly jumped from the sixth floor of a residential building on Peddar Road Additional Commissioner of Police Krishna Prakash said ldquoThe woman has been identified as Bina Gulabrai VajraniShe had been mentally unstable for the past seven to eight years and resided alone at Carter Road Bandra She and her father had come to her unclersquos house here where she jumped in the wee hours of Monday The cause for committing suicide is not known The body was sent to J J Hospital for postmortemrdquoKurlaA 28yearold vegetable vendor in Naupada Kurla committed suicide by hanging himself He wrote a suicide note on his shirt blaming four relatives for driving him to take the step The deceased was identified as Avdesh Jaiswal who was found hanging at a construction site in the areaThe incident was reported to the V B Nagar police station on Saturday according to Senior Police Inspector Subhash Raut who said ldquoHis body was recovered in the morning on Saturday after which we discovered that he had written the names of his auntrsquos children who had provoked him to commit suicide on the shirt he was wearingrdquoWhen the four were summoned to the police station it was revealed that they had sidelined the deceased after they incurred losses in the business because of him as he would often let people take vegetables from the shop free of chargeKherwadiA 29yearold youth hanged himself to death at his residence at Siddharth Nagar Bandra East on Monday The deceased identified as Kunal Ramji Ambavankar was living alone since his parentsrsquo passing a few years agoHe was a ward boy at a private hospital in Bandra said the police ldquoWe did not find any suicide note from the spot His neighbours revealed he was under depression since the past few daysrdquo said PSI Sheetal Patil from the Kherwadi police stationVikhroliOn Sunday night a 25yearold driver committed suicide at his Vikhroli residence where he was found hanging He has been identified as Narsappa Mariappa Maitri but the police are yet to find a cause for the suicideOshiwaraIn another incident of suicide a 35yearold Lokhandwala resident is thought to have jumped from her 16th floor bedroom window in Andheri West on Sunday night The victim Ekta Babbar was a casting agent who sourced new artistes for film and television producers and directorsThe residential building in Lokhandwala where Ekta Babbar jumped to her death on Sunday night Babbar like most of the five cases recorded over the past three days is suspected to have been driven to suicide by depressionThe watchman at Green Acres building heard a loud thud and discovered the deceased lying on the ground According to the senior police inspector at Oshiwara police station Subhash Vele the police were sure she hadnrsquot jumped from the terrace as it was lockedThe officers noticed that there were three flats without window grills on the ninth 13th and 16th floors in the building and began visiting each of the flats When they went to the 16th floor they found the Babbarrsquos mother watching television She had thought Babbar was asleep in her room but when the police broke open the bedroom door they found the room empty and the window openThe police have registered a case of accidental death and suspect depression may have driven her to suicide ldquoWe havenrsquot found any suicide note at the residence The mother said that she Ekta had been depressed for the past five months ever since her father had passed awayrdquo said Vele