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405 deaths in 8 months: Tirupur turning suicide capital of TN by Radha Venkatesan

Gowthami limps into the all-women police station in the export hub of Tirupur with tears in her eyes. The 23-year-old mother of a little boy attempted to end her life swallowing a packet of powdered mosquito repellent coil, but miraculously survived. ''I don't want to be alive. My husband says I look like a fat pig... he thrashes me quite often,'' she says.

Every day, at least a dozen young couples like Gouthami and her merchandizer husband N Prakash, who get locked in seemingly blissful love marriages, land up at the Tirupur women's police station with acute suicidal tendencies.

And despite counselling, many of them end up killing themselves. Last month alone, 103 persons poisoned, hanged or burnt themselves to death in Tirupur district. The job seekers' paradise is also fast emerging as the suicide capital of Tamil Nadu.

The official statistics present a shocking picture: Every month, at least 50 men and women have killed themselves in Tirupur district this year. Within the first eight months of 2010, the suicide toll has already touched a shocking 405, only 77 less than the suicide count in 2009. Between June and August this year, 215 people have ended their lives.

''In a land of migrant labourers, where the workforce is largely drawn from southern TN and north India, suicide figures are bound to be high,'' says Tirupur SP A Arun. About 3 lakh people, mostly youth, from the poverty-ridden hinterlands of southern TN and north India, especially Bihar and UP, work in the nearly 25,000 textile units in and around Tirupur.