The victim, Pooranpreet Kaur, set herself on fire at her house in Sarhali village near Amritsar in Punjab, the reported. She was reportedly depressed as her visa to go abroad got rejected.
The name of the country for which Kaur had applied has not been revealed. The girl’s mother Rajwinder Kaur has filed a complaint with the police. Rajwinder Kaur told police her daughter had completed her studies till senior secondary and applied for a visa to go abroad on the basis of her IELTS score but her file was rejected a few days ago, reported.
“Some of our neighbors heard her cries, doused out the fire and rushed her to Sarhali civil hospital, where she was declared brought dead. Pooranpreet was depressed since then and on Sunday afternoon, she was alone at her home when took the extreme step,” Rajwinder Kaur was quoted saying by the Hindustan Times.
Youth from Punjab apply for immigration to other countries in large number. A recent study by the Centre for Research on Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID) in Chandigarh underlined that 93 percent emigrants from Punjab are non-poor and “largely belong to households in the top two wealth quintiles (approximately 75 percent)”. The study also pointed out that 59 percent of the international migrants from Punjab are low in educational attainment.
The author of the study, Aswini Kumar Nanda told the in an Interview that of the 133 villages he visited across Punjab, he found only one in which families did not have relatives living abroad. He said, “They think that if they settle abroad, the future of next generation is secured.”
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