Undying spirit: A candlelit vigil at Rizwanur Rahman’s alma mater, St Xavier’s College

Simple suicide.” The oxymoron has been doing the rounds since February 28, when a Central Bureau of Investigation report revealed that Rizwanur Rahman killed himself. But Rizwanur’s death, it was alleged, was NOT a simple suicide.

But then what exactly is a simple suicide, you may ask.

Well, in the eyes of the law, a simple suicide is something that a person commits on his or her own volition. No living person can be legally held responsible for or punished for the death. But there are cases where the suicide has been committed under instigation of some sort. The instigator in this category of suicide, by “abetting” the commission of it, commits a crime under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code.

In the case of Rizwanur’s alleged suicide, a number of people — including members of the Todi family (Rizwanur’s in-laws) and several top Calcutta cops — accused of having driven him to it, have been booked under this section. Rizwanur, who had married the daughter of wealthy businessman Ashok Todi last August, was found lying dead on the railway tracks only a month later, giving rise to suspicions that foul play was involved.

The CBI, which was engaged to investigate the case, revealed last week that though Rizwanur did kill himself, he did so under duress. Those named by the investigative body now face trial. If convicted, the punishment can mean a maximum of ten years in prison in addition to fines. The law, which comes under the heading, “Abetment to Suicide,” states: “If any person commits suicide, whoever abets the commission of such suicide shall be punished with imprisonment... for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall be liable to fine.”

But what constitutes “abetment”? According to advocate Arnab Ghosh of the Calcutta High Court, “Abetment can mean any act — direct or indirect — and / or word or words, attributed to an accused, which can be seen to have had an impact on a person so strongly as to have caused him to take his own life.” He explains that “cruelty,” “harassment,” “torture” and “intimidation” — physical and / or mental — are all terms that crop up in law courts trying 306 cases, as factors that constitute “abetment”. He, however, points out that since such terms are “ambiguous and subjective”, it is important to go by individual evidence for cases under 306.

That is, the court must decide in each case whether or not any act or word — spoken or written — was directly related to a suicide. “Only if such a link can be established, can conviction take place,” Ghosh states.

In order to distinguish between what has and what has not been established as “abetment” in the law courts of India, in his book Law of Crimes Retd Justice V.V. Raghavan of the Madras High Court, (revised by P.M. Bakshi, member of the Law Commission of India), looks at a few examples.

In the Surinder Kumar vs the State of Punjab case of 1983, a man charged with 306 was accused of abetting the suicide of a woman with “blackmail”, but subsequently acquitted because a direct co-relation could not be established. Justice Raghavan writes, “(the) accused who got himself photographed with a girl wanted to blackmail the girl so as to get her married to him or to force her to illicit intercourse. The girl later committed suicide. The accused was charged with abetting suicide. It was held that there could not be said to be any intention on his part that she should commit suicide. It was primarily to save her father from shame... that she decided to commit suicide. It was an independent act by her to meet her end.”

But in another 1983 case — Nirmala Devi vs the State of Punjab — in which a woman, in her “dying declaration” or suicide note, stated that she was taking her own life because she could not bear the torture she was subjected to by her mother-in-law, for “bringing a very small dowry”, a conviction did take place because a direct nexus was found between the suicide and the actions of the accused, the mother-in-law.

But in a similar case, also involving the suicide of a woman for dowry-related torture by her in-laws (Gurdip Kumar vs State of Punjab, 1981), the accused was acquitted because the death — brought on by a virtual hunger strike by the woman protesting the torture — was seen to be not a direct cause of the taunts. Raghavan writes, “the newly married woman, who was pregnant, committed suicide. The atmosphere in the house was tense. For three to four days... the girl did not take her meals. No act or illegal omission was attributed to the husband or to the parents-in-law. It was held that the husband or the in-laws could not be held guilty of abetment because the girl had stopped eating, or because the husband could not persuade her to eat. The girl must be deemed to have (died)... as... (she) was not able to withstand the jolts of life.”

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a legal advisor to one of the accused persons in the Rizwanur case says that in cases of 306, “The defense is built around trying to establish that there is no direct link between what the accused has said or done to the actual act of suicide.”

Advocate Samir Das of Nadia adds that there have been “situations” in which people have been charged with 306 and dragged to court. “Almost any act of suicide can be found to have a source of instigation,” he says.

In one instance, the elder of two sisters committed suicide by drinking poison when her younger sister called her “ugly as a crow”.

In another instance, the parents of a child who hanged himself from a ceiling fan after his tutor scolded him for failing his exams sued the teacher. Another man found himself charged with 306 after his neighbour, whom he had slapped after a quarrel, jumped into the river and killed himself. “In each case, the defence established that the acts or words which allegedly led to the suicide were not intended to cause the occurrence of suicide,” says Das.

On the other hand, the judgment was different in the case of a woman who killed herself in her in-laws’ house. Her parents were able to produce a letter by her mother-in-law directly telling her to “find yourself some rope and go hang”. The accused was convicted.

Whatever the nature of the suicide — abetted or un-abetted — it was as simple as that.