21-year-old gay woman commits suicide after family abuses her

In a tragic incident, a 21-year-old student, identified as Anjana Harish, from Kannur, Kerala took her life after being harassed by her family physically and mentally.

Anjana was found hanging in a tree in Goa. In a video she released on Facebook on March 13, Anjana talked about the mental trauma she had to go through as her family did not accept her sexuality. She also mentioned that she was placed in a mental health facility after her family thought they could apparently cure her “condition.” She was reportedly heard saying in the video, “I really do not know what to say and what to do. The medicine makes me dizzy and I am not able to see or talk properly. I’ve become robotic.” Although there was no suicide note found at the spot, Anjana’s friends believe that her family’s homophobia caused her to take the extreme step. “We were sitting at the premises of the hostel where we were staying. Sometime later, we realised that we could not find Anjana anywhere. We thought she may have around and would have gone for a walk. But we got suspicious after an hour or so. So, we went around to find Anjana hanging from a tree on a lungi. Even though we immediately tried rushing her to the hospital, we could not save her,” a friend of Anjana stated, according to a report.

Anjana had gone to Goa with three of her friends before the Covid-19 lockdown. “She was subject to domestic abuse and a lot of mental torture. She was quite disturbed,” another one of her friends added.