Minors jump to death in NCR, gaming link suspected

An alarming negative impact of social media has reportedly resulted in a horrendous incident with three minors jumping to their deaths from the ninth floor of their apartment in Ghaziabad early Wednesday morning. The victims have been identified as Pakhi (12), Prachi (14), and Vishika (16).The incident took place at Bharat City, a residential township in Ghaziabad, at around 2 am. Preliminary inquiries suggest the sisters had been spending significant time on mobile phones and were allegedly addicted to a Korean online task-based gaming app. The apparent suicide pact recalled the Blue Whale challenge that is believed to have pushed a 14-year-old Mumbai boy to suicide in 2017.

The three sisters reportedly did everything together, including bathing, eating, going to school, sleeping, and other day-to-day activities. The three did not go to school and had been home for the last two years, police said. Their father, Chetan Kumar, a forex trader, has two wives, both sisters, and there were five children in all - four daughters and a son. The entire family lived together.

The girls left a suicide note apologising to their parents and asking them to read a diary detailing what led to their death. “Is diary me jo kuch bhi likha hai woh sab padh lo kyuki ye sab sach hai (Read everything written in this diary because all of it is true.) Read now. I’m really sorry. Sorry, Papa,” the note read. It was accompanied by a hand-drawn crying emoji. An eight-page-long suicide note was written on the pages of a pocket diary, detailing their gaming and mobile activity. Prachi, the middle sister, was said to be leading her siblings in a game.

The victims’ father said he was unaware that his daughters were playing a task-based game, and he was told about it by forensic experts during the investigation. “I never knew that it would be a task-based game in which they tell you to die. I thought they were playing ludo. Forensic experts told me that my daughters were involved in such a game. They used to play on a mobile phone, which was seized by police,” he said.  However, he said that there were 50 tasks in the game and the last one was completed on Monday.

The tragedy jolted the middle class neighbourhood and highlighted the perils of online addiction and the impact on young minds. Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police (DGP) Rajeev Krishna said in Lucknow, “We are getting the whole case examined in detail.” The state police chief also stressed the need for cyber awareness, saying the police department holds regular awareness drives and people can reach out to local police stations for issues related to online addiction.

“Their parents had restricted their mobile phone usage for the past few days, which left them distressed. This may have triggered the decision (to take the extreme step),” said Assistant Commissioner of Police (Shalimar Garden) Atul Kumar Singh. The sisters got addicted to online gaming during the pandemic years and played it almost without break.

“They often said they wanted to go to Korea. I did not know that this game involved such tasks. I came to know about all this only after the police forensic team examined their mobile phones,” Kumar said “If I had known that such tasks existed, I would have stopped it. No father would ever allow his children to be part of it,” he said. Recounting the sequence of events, Kumar said the family was asleep at the time. “My wife was sleeping in the inner room. The girls woke up on the pretext of drinking water, bolted the door from inside and jumped from the balcony.”  He said the girls threw their mobile phones outside the room. “The police later seized them for investigation.”