Chetan Kumar, the father of three sisters who allegedly jumped to their deaths from a high-rise building in Ghaziabad, shed more light on the tragic incident.
Ghaziabad: Chetan Kumar, father of three minor sisters, who died after jumping from the balcony of their ninth floor house. (PTI)Talking about the incident, Kumar said that he loved the three kids a lot and he came to know about the incident when his wife realized that the three girls had locked the door of the house from inside.
The three girls, Nishika (16), Prachi (14) and Pakhi (12), allegedly locked themselves in their room before jumping from the window one after the other.
“I loved my children a lot…they used to watch Korean dramas, Korean games and Korean reels. Their eyes were swollen, so I took away their phones. They were angry about it. Is it a sin to take away your child’s phone? I took away their phones because their eyes were swollen,” he said in a conversation with the news agency.
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Police said there was no indication of foul play and initial investigations suggested the girls jumped one after the other. Officials are examining family circumstances and digital evidence as well as the father’s claims of their online gaming obsession, with cybercrime teams trying to trace mobile phones using IMEI numbers to retrieve data from Korean apps, officials said.
A complex family dynamicInvestigators have uncovered a complex family structure, confirming that Kumar has three wives, Sujata, Hina and Tina, who are biological sisters. According to PTI, the elder daughter was born to Sujata, while the two younger sisters were born to Hena.
Also Read | Amid investigation into Ghaziabad minor’s death, police found father’s live-in partner had committed suicide in 2015
Officials said the family was under financial stress from the Covid-19 pandemic, deepening their isolation due to debt. Investigators also noted that the sisters were more emotionally attached to their father than their mother, which is why a suicide note and diary recovered from their home addressed him only.
A nine-page pocket diary found at the scene reveals intense attachment to Korean culture, loneliness and anguish within the family. According to an earlier report by HT.com, the case has also revived investigations into Kumar’s past, when police revealed that a former live-in partner had died in 2015 in a case treated as a suicide.
Also Read | ‘Later the girls were depressed…’: What the police said about sister’s suicide in Ghaziabad!
Dada demands to ban Korean gamesMeanwhile, the girls’ grandmother has called on the government to ban Korean task-based games, saying such apps are pushing children to extremes. Protests broke out in parts of Delhi demanding stricter controls on online gaming for minors.
“I am appealing to the government with folded hands to ban the game, so that such deaths or suicides do not happen again,” he said, according to PTI.
(with inputs from PTI)
