Suicides choose to leap this week; passenger saves the train CAIRO: As Ramadan comes to an end and Eid El-Fitr approaches, shocking crimes including suicide, parental murders of their own children, and transportation mishaps continue to fill the pages of the local press. Al-Masry Al-Youm in its Oct. 14 edition reported that a high school student in Al-Omrania, Giza committed suicide after failing his exams for the third time. He jumped from atop a building and died immediately. Another man also jumped off the roof of a building. A police investigation revealed that the victim lived with his 72-year-old father and that both he and his father had suffered from mental illness. The jumper had told his father that he was going for a walk, but a few minutes later the father was notified by the bawab (doorman) that his son had jumped from the sixth floor of the building. On the same day, Al-Messa reported a similar incident in Al-Waily, in which a child fell from a sixth floor balcony where he was playing and succumbed to fatal injuries a short while later. A 13-year-old primary school student stole her mother's jewelry and gave it to an older friend to sell. Because she was peddling the stolen wares below market value, the jeweler suspected foul play and informed the police. The girl was arrested and confessed to the theft, reported Al-Wafd in its Oct. 14 edition. On Oct. 15, a passenger saved train number 989, heading from Aswan to Cairo, from a potential disaster when he noticed heavy smoke pouring from the engines. He called the police who then stopped the train and extinguished the fire. On Oct. 16 Al-Messa newspaper reported that a widow residing in Akhmim, Sohag stabbed her 15-year-old daughter with a knife and then set her body on fire to be certain of her death. The mother attributed her crime to doubts about her daughter s behavior. In another family incident, a farmer shot his sons, killing two of them on the spot. Rushdy Khalifa, a 65-year-old farmer was angry at his son Mohamed because the son had sold his car without the father's permission. Apparently, the irate father couldn t control his anger. He grabbed his gun and started firing at his three sons. Al-Wafd in its Oct. 17 edition reminds readers that avian flu hasn't been eradicated. Detectives and health inspectors paid an impromptu visit to unlicensed poultry markets in Al-Zawya Al-Hamra district. They found 1,500 chickens unfit for human consumption and suspected of carrying the deadly virus. In Al-Ahram Al-Masaey, three men kidnapped a girl, stole her jewelry then killed her in Kafr El-Sheikh just before iftar. Police solved the mystery of a 19-year-old girl found dead and thrown into a garbage dump near the Bridge of Aitbh. Police said one of the men was the girl's driver who took her to the Al-Hamol pharmacy where she worked every day.
