Tragedy in Ghaziabad: Three Sisters' Suicide Shocks Community, Note Reveals Cultural Connection

Three Indian sisters, Pakhi, 12, Prachi, 14, and Vishika, 16, jumped to their deaths from a ninth-floor balcony in Bharat City, Ghaziabad, on Wednesday morning. The tragedy occurred at around 2:15 a.m., according to local reports, and sent shockwaves through the community. The girls had gathered at the balcony before leaping one by one, their final moments captured in heart-wrenching detail by witnesses and media.

Local reports indicated that the girls' screams were so loud that they woke their parents and neighbours. However, by the time the parents broke down the door to the apartment, it was too late. The devastated parents later found an eight-page suicide note in a pocket diary, which revealed the girls' deep attachment to Korean culture and their belief that their parents were attempting to suppress their passions.

The suicide note contained chilling messages, including the statement: 'How will you make us leave Korean? Korean was our life, so how dare you make us leave our life? You didn't know how much we loved them. Now you have seen the proof. Now we are convinced that Korean and K-Pop are our life.' The girls had even taken on Korean names before their deaths - Cindy, Maria, and Aliza.

An official had previously indicated that the girls' father had imposed restrictions on their use of mobile phones, citing concerns over their growing obsession with gaming and Korean culture. The girls had also taken on Korean names and were deeply immersed in the culture, listing other art and culture forms they were obsessed with, including Thai, Japanese, Chinese, and English music and movies.

In the suicide note, the girls expressed their desire to instill the same obsessions in their fourth sister, Devu. However, their parents had introduced Devu to Bollywood, which the sisters claimed they hated more than their lives. The note further stated that they felt offended when asked to 'educate' their sister, instead of sharing their passion for Korea with her. They claimed that they made Devu their enemy, because no one at home allowed her to be like them.

The girls' obsession with Korean culture was so extreme that they mentioned their disgust at the thought of marrying an Indian man when they grew up. They stated that they liked and loved a Korean, but their parents wanted them to marry an Indian. The note read: 'We never expected anything like this. So that's why we are committing suicide.'

According to Indian media, the young girls had allegedly become addicted to a Korean love game called 'We are not Indians' during the Covid-19 pandemic. The game is believed to have given users different tasks, the last of which was allegedly dying by suicide. It also provided Korean names, which the children began using.

The girls' devastated father, Chetan Kumar, described what he had read in the suicide note. 'They said: "Papa, sorry, Korea is our life, Korea is our biggest love, whatever you say, we cannot give it up. So we are killing ourselves,"' Kumar said. 'This should not happen to any parent or child,' he added.

Television reports in India on Wednesday morning captured the bodies of the young girls on the ground outside the building as their mother wailed and a crowd of shocked neighbours watched on. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, the tragedy unfolded at an apartment in Bharat City, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India.

Visuals from their home revealed jottings on a wall in the girls' bedroom, including: 'I am very very alone' and 'make me a hert of broken (sic)'. 'When we reached the scene, we confirmed that three girls, daughters of Chetan Kumar, had died after jumping from the building,' said Atul Kumar Singh, Assistant Commissioner of Police.

Later on Wednesday, a resident, Arun Singh, claimed he witnessed the incident and told NDTV that as he was going to sleep, he saw someone sitting on a balcony ready to jump. 'I couldn't figure out if it was a man or a woman since I was standing at a distance. I called my wife and said that someone was trying to jump and I should do something,' he told the Indian news site.

'My partner suggested that it must be a marital dispute, I thought it was a couple; a man trying to jump while the wife was trying to stop him,' he added. According to Singh, another girl then emerged, attempting to pull in the person sitting on the railing, and was successful in her attempt.

But just minutes later, the person climbed onto the ledge again. 'A small girl came and hugged the person sitting on the railing tightly. Before I could get my phone and call someone to stop the person from jumping, all three - the person sitting on the railing and two girls trying to pull them down - fell off the balcony,' Singh recalled.

'One of them seemed determined to jump while the two others were trying to save them, but all three fell headfirst,' he added. The neighbour ran to the ground floor and called the police and an ambulance, which, according to him, took an hour to arrive.

'In a country where pizza, burgers, and groceries are delivered in 10 minutes, it took an ambulance an hour to arrive. It is a sad reality,' Singh told the site. He claimed he made 10 to 15 calls. Singh did not know the girls or their family personally.