Abdul Kadir Jjemba, a Primary Leaving Examination – PLE candidate, yesterday committed suicide four hours after attending a briefing for the papers that were starting today at 9am. He was a candidate at Bukika Junior School, Gombe Sub-county, in Wakiso district.
Trouble started when Jjemba returned home at 4pm feeling hungry and asked her mother, Faridah Nankya, to give him food.
Nankya in her statement recorded by homicide detectives at Kasangati said she told her son to first wash utensils. Jjemba obliged the mother’s instruction and afterwards he demanded for food again.
“When he asked for food after washing the utensils, I jokingly told him to hang himself or take poison. I thought he would see that food wasn’t ready,” Nankya said.
But after a few minutes, Nankya looked for Jjemba but he was nowhere to be found. The shock came when Jjemba’s sister entered their bedroom and noticed he was hanging in the house roof.
“My daughter saw him hanging on a bedsheet piece. She made an alarm that attracted me and neighbours. We indeed found him hanging on the rope,” Nankya added.
The locals helped Nankya to cut Jjemba off the rope believing he was still alive. He was rushed to a clinic in Gombe where was confirmed dead.
Patrick Onyango the Kampala metropolitan police spokesperson said detectives found when the body was put in the sitting room and took it for a postmortem.
Onyango said the homicide team saw bruises in the deceased’s neck. He, however, said police cannot conclude that it was suicide when the postmortem results are not yet out.
A number of students have hanged themselves in various parts of the country. The suicides have happened in Wakiso, Bweyogerere, Kira, Katwe, Kasangati and Gombe.