By Sampurna Majumder
Three young girls jumped from the ninth floor of their Ghaziabad apartment building early on Wednesday. The authorities believe that the incident is related to “excessive online gaming.”
The 12,14 and 16-year old sisters took their own life following a fight at home about their increasing reliance on an online task-based game, according to the Ghaziabad police. When the incident happened, all three of them were by themselves at home. When they returned, their parents found them dead and informed the local authorities. They were rushed to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared them dead.
According to the senior police officers, initial interviews with family members revealed that the parents had recently objected to the daughters’ excessive online gaming time, which led to conflict in the home. Investigators however emphasized that it would be premature to assign the deaths to a single cause as a number of circumstances could have contributed to the tragedy.
Atul Kumar Singh, Assistant Commissioner of police, Shalimar Garden, Ghaziabad said that they received information about the incident at 2:15 am. He also mentioned that the police reached the spot and conducted an investigation.
According to the investigation, three of them have been playing more Internet games and skipping school more often in recent years. No suicide note has been found as of yet, but a senior police official stated that they are looking through their cell phones and talking to family members to understand the sequence of events.
The police said their bodies have been sent for post-mortem examination.