Financial strain, desperate measures

Dawn · 26/10/2026، 1:06:23 AM

The apparent rise in murder-suicide cases among young, middle-class families in Karachi cannot be attributed solely to social transition or inadequate mental healthcare. Amid sluggish growth, persistent inflation and unemployment, the government cannot escape scrutiny over its mounting tax burden on middle-class households and the economic distress that may push vulnerable towards desperate extremes. Experts urge the government to abandon ad hoc economic policies and inequitable taxation that force ordinary Pakistanis to shoulder the cost of inefficient utilities and FBR’s failure to adequately tax powerful agriculture, trading and real estate interests and curb corruption in tax machinery. “Unless the state becomes fairer and stops squeezing an already exhausted blue and white-collar workforce, isolated tragedies could give way to wider public unrest, potentially ignited by a seemingly minor trigger,” warns an analyst requesting anonymity. The inability of average families to deal with the consistently rising cost of living and unfairly high taxes and stressors, such as rent, utility bills, fuel hikes, rising education and healthcare cost, chips away at a family’s emotional baseline until a minor shock feels like catastrophic triggering sometimes dangerous actions. Are poor economic conditions, flawed govt policies pushing middle class to murder-suicides? Traditional family and neighbourhood support networks are fraying, institutional alternatives remain weak, mental healthcare is largely inaccessible, and bank credit to tide over financial distress is often out of reach. These tragedies in Ahsanabad in September and Gulshan-e-Hadeed this month, where fathers allegedly killed their dependents before taking their own lives, have heightened anxiety across cosmopolitan Karachi and beyond. They raise troubling questions about mounting economic pressures, fears of downward social mobility and growing despair among young family heads struggling to sustain families. Media