3 sisters jump to death from highrise, Korean game link suspected

Residents of the nondescript Bharat City apartment complex in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad woke up in the wee hours on Wednesday to the screams of three minor sisters who jumped off their ninth-floor flat over being denied access to their mobile phone. The police said the sisters were addicted to a Korean task-based game.

Identified as Pakhi (12), Prachi (14) and Vishika (16), the three were addicted to Korean culture, K-pop, K-dramas and games. They ended their life after their father Chetan Kumar took away their mobile phones.

The hapless father, who, like others, woke up at 2.15 am to the screams of his daughters falling to death, spotted a note from them. “Sorry papa,” it said.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Atul Kumar Singh said the identities of the three girls had been confirmed. He added that the sisters were addicted to a Korean task-based interactive “love game”. An eight-page suicide note recovered from the house is key to the probe. It says, “Is diary mein joh kuch bhi likha hai woh sab padh lo, kyunki ye sab sach hai (Read everything written in this diary, it is all true).”

Chetan Kumar admitted to his daughters’ chronic addiction to Korean culture through mobile access.

Their note said, “Sorry papa, Korea is our life, our biggest love, whatever you say, we cannot give it up, so we are killing ourselves.”

The parents of the girls said their mobile phone access had been cut off for some days due to their growing addiction. The girls had not been attending school for two years.

The police said Chetan Kumar had married two sisters and lived with both and four daughters and a son.

Notably, Chief Economic Adviser V Anantha Nageswaran had only a few days ago warned of digital addiction as a major public health crisis backing age-based restrictions on social media.