Kamal Ghorui
(ANI photo)
NEW DELHI: In the Ghaziabad triple death case involving three minor siblings from the same family, police on Wednesday revealed new details hours after the incident. The cops said the children’s father had married twice and has five children, four daughters and a son. Three of the daughters died after jumping from the ninth-floor of their residential building.Police said the incident is being examined in the context of the girls’ alleged mobile phone addiction and the possible influence of a Korean online game, though the probe is still under way.
The tragedy took place around 2.15 am on Wednesday, when the three minor sisters jumped from their ninth-floor flat in a tower at Bharat City, under the Teela Mor police station limits in the Sahibabad area of Ghaziabad.All the members of the family lived together at Ghaziabad residence.Assistant commissioner of police (Shalimar Garden) Atul Kumar Singh said the preliminary investigation suggests that the three sisters were addicted to a Korean task-based interactive “love game”. He said their parents had objected to their excessive mobile phone use in recent days.Deputy commissioner of police Nimish Patil said further investigation showed that the girls were heavily influenced by Korean content and spent a large amount of time on their mobile phones.“Family members had restricted their mobile phone usage for the past few days, which left them distressed and may have triggered the decision (to take the extreme step),” he said.The police said that on reaching the spot, they found the girls — Nishika (16), Prachi (14) and Pakhi (12), daughters of Chetan Kumar, lying on the ground floor with fatal injuries. They were rushed to a hospital in Loni by ambulance, where doctors declared them dead on arrival.According to the police, the sisters became addicted to online gaming during the Covid-19 period and had been regularly playing the Korean game, mostly together.“The three did everything together – from bathing, eating and sleeping to going to school,” ACP Singh said.DCP Patil said the girls’ education had been irregular and that they had not attended school for the past two years. Even earlier, their academic performance had not been satisfactory, he added.He said it was still not clear when the mobile phone and gaming addiction began, and that the investigation was at an early stage. However, it was evident that the girls were highly addicted to mobile phone use, he said.Officials said the incident took place late at night after other family members had gone to sleep.During the investigation, police recovered a diary from the girls’ stationery that contained material linked to the incident.A note found inside the diary read, “Read everything written in this diary, it is all here,” along with a crying-face emoji and a handwritten message saying, “Sorry papa, I am really sorry.”Police said the exact circumstances that led the sisters to take the extreme step are still being investigated, and statements of family members are being recorded.
