Unremitting teasing by local youths led yet another schoolgirl to kill herself at Madhya Nandipara in the city yesterday.
Umme Kulsum Elora, 14, ended her life by swallowing pesticides at around 3:00pm. She was rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, where she died a little after 4:00pm.
A class eight student of Dakkhin Banasri Model High School, Elora had been bearing the torment of street harassment by Rezaul Karim, 19, and his friends for over a year.
The girl's parents had taken the matter up with the local leaders and Rezaul's parents, but to no avail.
Halima, the mother who was fainting over Elora's body on and off, said, "I went from door to door pleading for help to save my daughter from Rezaul, but no-one did anything."
Elora was the youngest of three daughters and a son of Halima and Amin Uddin Mollah, an employee at the Accountant General's Shegunbagicha office.
She used to go to school in a van. But as teasing by Rezaul and his associates got intolerable, Halima had been taking her to school for last one and half months.
"On Thursday, Rezaul and five other local youths stopped us on our way back from the school and asked why I complained to his parents," Halima said.
The mother and daughter returned home at around 12:45pm and had lunch together.
"Around three, Elora came to my room and lay down on the floor. She requested me to lie beside her."
As Halima got near her, she knew her little girl had taken pesticides.
Elora's sister Oni told The Daily Star that Elora could not go out of their house for about a month. She started going to school again only 15 days ago after some influential locals assured the family that she would not be teased again.
Meanwhile, Rezaul's aunt claimed that Rejaul and Elora had a relationship.
Talking to The Daily Star in return for anonymity, she said her nephew did never tease the girl. Rather, it was the girl's family who would torture her for relations with Rejaul.
A study by Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association (BNWLA) in 2008 found teasing to be a contributing factor in suicides of at least a dozen girls between January 2006 and June 2008. The number has only increased in the last two years.
On March 7, a teenage girl in Sherpur upazila committed suicide by taking pesticides as she could not withstand harassment every day on her way to school.
The girl, Reshma Khatun, 18, of Shanti Nagar village, was a class seven student of Salpa Technical School.
Reshma's neighbour Munaf, 24, and his friend Robin had allegedly been teasing her for the last few months.
Earlier in January, Nashfia Akand Pinky, a class nine student, committed suicide by hanging herself from a ceiling fan in the city's West Agargaon. The apparent reason was harassment by 35-year-old Murad, a driver by profession.