The three sisters, aged 16, 14, and 12 years, took their own lives by allegedly jumping from the ninth floor of a residential high-rise building in Ghaziabad, police said on Wednesday. The girls were “highly addicted” to a Korean online mobile game, and their obsession with gaming was extreme, police said.
The incident occurred at about 12.30 am. According to police, all three girls were at home with their mothers. “After some time, they went to the puja room and locked it from inside. Thereafter, they used a chair to jump out of the window one by one. They all died on the spot. The guards and locals on the ground floor woke up hearing the loud noise of girls falling, and even their family members on the ninth floor woke up. Police were informed, and bodies were sent for autopsy”, Assistant Police Commissioner Atul Kumar Singh said.
An unusually synchronised routine
The girls lived with their father, a forex trader, and two mothers. The eldest girl was the daughter of the father’s first wife, while the two younger girls were the daughters of his second wife.
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Singh also said the sisters followed an unusually synchronised routine. “They followed a daily life routine together; even went to the bathroom together. Their diary left behind has a lot of details about their lifestyle and their obsession with the task-based game,” he said.
Diary notes and identity fixation
The diary was found to be full of apology messages and sketches, including a crying caricature. According to the police, the girls wrote with apologies and mentioned that they were “tremendously influenced by the game.”
“The girls left behind a lot of notes in a diary and stated that they were sorry, and also made a crying caricature. They were highly obsessed with the game and thought that they were not Indians, but Koreans. They also portrayed themselves as Korean princesses under the influence of the game,” Singh said. The contents of the diary are still being analyzed as part of the investigation.
“A true life story. Is diary mein jo kuch bhi likha hain, woh sab padh lo, kyunki ye sab sach hain. (Whatever you are seeing in this diary, read everything, because everything is true) Read now! I am really sorry, sorry papa," India Today quoted the letter that included a sketch of a crying face.
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Gaming addiction under scrutiny
The police mentioned that the family was aware of the girls being addicted to their phones and had tried to limit their usage by taking away the phones, but the sisters reportedly managed to get them back multiple times.
The 16-year-old was reportedly still in Class 4. The police also mentioned, “It is an online task-based game that they were addicted to. They were not attentive to their studies... This situation developed after the Covid-19 pandemic...they got addicted to online gaming.”
The authorities have seized the smartphones and will investigate them to identify the game and the content.
