Rise in suicide cases worries Inspector General

Inspector General (IG) of Police Merlyn Yolamu has expressed concern over the rise in cases of mob justice and suicide recorded in the first quarter of this year.

Yolamu was speaking Thursday during a national conference for community policing in Lilongwe.

Police have recorded 116 cases of suicide in the first quarter of this year compared to 88 cases which they recorded during the same period last year.

Yolamu said the development is worrying especially because there is community policing, which was supposed to be helping in bringing the cases down.

“Mob justice and suicide are the cases that are still rising. People have made it a tendency to kill suspects. According to our laws, a person is convicted of a crime when he or she has gone to court and has been found guilty.

“And according to our reports, 85 percent of people who commit suicide are males. This is due to challenges they face in life. So, instead of seeking help from other people, they think of killing themselves,” Yolamu said.

National Executive Committee Chairperson for Community Policing, Yunus Lambat, said there is a need to have strong relationships between communities and the police by sharing information to help in the fight against crime.

“The role of community policing is very important because, in Malawi, we depend on the public to give information, unlike in developed countries there they have digital systems of tracing crime suspects,” Lambat said.

Paramount Chief Kyungu blamed the increased cases on the abuse of human rights.