Setting Oneself on Fire: Mental Illness

ISLAMABAD: A young man died after setting himself ablaze at D-Chowk, a few hundred yards away from the Parliament House, against police highhandedness, eyewitnesses of the shivering episode said.

The police said that the victim was identified as Fazl-e-Rabbi, 25, son of Sabir Hussain, resident of Warsak Road, Peshawar. The police were unaware about the reason of his self immolation as Fazl-e-Rabbi refused to record his dying declaration to the police and expressed his hate for the police. However, he told the Pims staff that police brutality was cause of his self-immolation.

“I feel comfortable to die rather to live in the fear of police torture,” the victim told the hospital staff before dying. The police confirmed the happening, saying that the victim was shifted to Burn Centre of the Pims hospital where he breathed his last. The police said that a young man in his twenties, carrying a gallon of kerosene, suddenly appeared in the Chowk, poured the oil on his body and set himself on fire. Watching the scene the people present there got stunned and nobody came forward to rescue him, as the flames were so intense that they couldn’t gather the courage to save him.
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Louisiana, USA: Woman allegedly sets fire to herself and blames a hate group

October 2012 - A 20-year-old black woman said she was set on fire by three men who wrote the initials KKK and a racial slur on her car in northeastern Louisiana, police said Monday. Officers found Sharmeka Moffitt with burns on more than half of her body when they responded to her 911 call Sunday night, said Louisiana State Police spokeswoman Lt. Julie Lewis. The FBI is investigating the attack as a possible hate crime, but no arrests had been made as of late Monday, Lewis said. She said Moffitt was in critical condition at a hospital and that some of her injuries were third-degree burns.

Of course, when people are mentally ill in America and are suspected of crimes, especially minorities, they are tried for the worst possible offenses and get sentenced to long prison terms. Sharmeka was not merely charged with making a false police report, but terrorism.

March 2013 - The Winnsboro, Louisiana woman who is accused of making false claims was charged with terrorism
http://www.thenewsstar.com/article/20130319/NEWS01/130319009/Winnsboro-woman-who-claimed-racial-attack-charged-terrorizing
Sharmeka Moffitt, who police believe set herself on fire in a Winnsboro park in October after claiming she was attacked by Klansmen, faces two felony charges.

Istanbul man's death to avoid police repression
http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-2-166967-Young-man-sets-himself-on-fire-against-police-brutality

Louisiana Woman's Claim
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/10/22/louisiana-hate-crime/1650645/

The Mentally Ill Need Dog Justice