Metro53 - WAZIRABAD: Driven to desperation by grinding poverty and unbridled inflation, a man attempted suicide near the Wazirabad railway station by dousing himself with petrol and setting himself on fire, leaving him with 50 percent burns.
According to details, the victim—identified as a resident of Gujrat—arrived near the railway station and took the extreme measure in protest against the current economic crisis. Passersby rushed to the scene, extinguished the flames, and shifted the severely injured individual to a local hospital. Due to his critical condition, doctors subsequently referred him to Gujranwala.
In a poignant statement given prior to his transfer, the victim lamented that spiralling inflation had stripped him of the ability to afford even two square meals a day. He added that with petrol prices hovering at extreme levels, operating a rickshaw to earn an honest livelihood had become financially unviable, pushing him into absolute destitution.
The heart-wrenching incident has underscored the growing toll of the country's economic distress on the working class, renewing calls for urgent state intervention to combat extreme poverty and unemployment.
