It is ridiculous to suggest that suicide scenes in Indian movies are influencing people to end their lives, according to lawyer M Manoharan.

In a press statement yesterday, he said the root cause of suicide among Indian Malaysians was poverty.

Poverty inevitably leads to a sense of desperation and hopelessness, he explained.

Manoharan was responding to MIC deputy president G Palanivel who argued that suicide scenes in Indian movies should be censored as they generate thoughts about suicide.

Earlier this week, the nation was stunned to read of how a 30-year-old mother and her two young children perished after being run over by a train.

K Sanggita had held on to her four children as the train approached them but Victoria, eight, and Jason, five, escaped. Their siblings Sacheria Anthonyama, six and Esther, two, were killed on the spot. Jason, who suffered serious head injuries, is currently undergoing treatment.

'MIC has failed'

Meanwhile, Manoharan also criticised the MIC for allegedly failing to address poverty among Indians in this country.

"The current pathetic state of affairs befalling Indians in Malaysia is largely due to the ineffectiveness of (MIC president) S Samy Vellu and MIC," he claimed

Agreeing with him was Parti Reformasi Insan (Prim) pro-tem secretary-general P Uthayakumar, who said the Indian community was 'marginalised and sidelined'.

"Eighty percent of Indians in this country are in poverty and courtesy of the MIC, they have developed a culture of begging for piecemeal proposals.

"Malaysia is about the only country in the world where affirmative action plans are almost exclusively for the benefit of the majority community and the rich," he added in a statement.

Indians have both the highest suicide rate and lowest per capita income in this country. There are 21.1 Indians for every 100,000 suicides, in contrast to only 8.6 Chinese and 2.6 Malays.

Movies play a role

In a related development, research showed that housewives, who spend hours in front of the television, are the easiest to be influenced by scenes in movies.

There is also a higher probability of them committing suicide according to what they see in movies, according to a Bernama report quoting Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) communication and consultancy expert Ishak Abdul Hamid.

Ishak said these was the findings of western researcher George Gerbner.

"The theory states that those in the 'heavy viewers' category made up of people who spend hours in front of the TV such as housewives are more prone to believe what they see.

"To the point that they cannot separate between reality and fiction," he added.