According to records with police and Kushtia General Hospital, at least 19 women took their life and 65 attempted to commit suicide in six upazilas in the district last month.

Eleven of the 19 victims died during treatment at the hospital.

The number of suicide incidents would be more as many were not reported to police while a good number of women attempting suicide were treated at different upazila clinics, which went unrecorded, police sources said.

Most of the victims were housewives, allegedly tortured by their husbands or their family members for dowry or family feuds, said different NGOs monitoring violence against woman.

Of the 19 suicide incidents, 5 were in Kushtia Sadar upazila, 2 in Khoksa, 3 in Kumarkhali, 5 in Bheramara and 4 were in Daulatpur upazila.

Talking to this correspondent, police officials in the six police stations in the district admitted that suicide and murder of women due to violence increased in the district.

As per police records, 32 women committed suicide in previous four months (January 1 to April 30) in the district. This was the highest number of unnatural death of women among the 10 districts in Khulna division.

In most of the incidents, husbands were responsible for violence leading to suicide, said an official of Mollah Foundation, a local research organisation.

Demand for dowry was the main reason for torture, he said.

In a number of cases, poverty was behind family feuds leading to torture by husbands, he said.

Moin Uddin, Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Kushtia Sadar police station, said the actual number of death of women from violence would be far more as many incidents were not reported to police by the victim's relatives and cases were not filed to avoid alleged hassle.

In such cases, police have no alternative to recording unnatural deaths, he said.

Some NGO officials said in many cases, victims' families did not lodge case fearing retaliation by the killers and apprehending harassment by police.

"Poor families of victims want to avoid trouble and spending money in legal fight," said an NGO official.

There were instances where victims' families even declined to accept legal aid offered by NGOs, he said.