Anjana Harresh, also known as Chinnu Sulfikar was a 21 year old student at the Brennen College of Thalassery. In hope of acceptance from her family, she decided to come out like any other LGBTQ youth but she forgot one thing how homophobic the world so. But still after collecting all her courage, she came out as Bisexual to her family. She was not accepted by her family and they thought it is a illness. So they forced her into a conversion therapy. With the help of her supportive friends, she ran away from her home to the Hostel in Goa. The threats messages she & her friends were receiving from her family did not stopped. One day she was found dead in Goa on May 12, 2020. According to the Goa Police she committed suicide. The exact reason behind her death is unknown but it is alleged that she committed suicide because she was forced into Conversion Therapy, a practice to change a person's sexual orientation from homosexuality to heterosexuality.
In her last post on Facebook on March 13, 2020, she claimed that she was forced into conversion therapy at mental health centers run by Christian community and was put under heavy medication. She was slapped when she tried to explain there's nothing wrong with her. The scientific research says that conversion therapy leads to mental health illness, which also includes suicidal thoughts.
The story of Anjana tells about the horrors of the conversion therapy and what happens when peoples mentally tortured. Many of the LGBTQ youths who comes out to their family and their family did not accept their sexual orientation, runs away from their home or end up committing suicide. Conversion therapy have impacts on the mind of a person forced into this therapy. On September 6, 2018, the Supreme Court of India declared Section-377 as unconstitutional. Now is the time to criminalize this Conversion Therapy, which is taking lives of LGBTQ youths.