Three young sisters in India died after jumping from their apartment balcony in a heartbreaking incident that has shocked the country.
The girls—Pakhi, 12, Prachi, 14, and Vishika, 16—jumped from the ninth floor of their building in Bharat City, Ghaziabad, at around 2 : 15 am on Wednesday. Local reports said the sisters went to the balcony together and jumped one after another. Their screams were so loud that they woke their parents and nearby residents. By the time the parents broke open the door, the girls were already gone.
After the tragedy, the parents found an eight-page suicide note written in a pocket diary. The note revealed the girls’ deep obsession with Korean culture, especially K-Pop and Korean actors.
One part of the note read: “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.”
Another line said: “We didn’t love you and family as much as we loved the Korean actor and the K-Pop group. Korean was our life.”
The sisters had even given themselves Korean names before their deaths—Cindy, Maria, and Aliza.
An official earlier said that the girls’ father had recently restricted their use of mobile phones. Reports also claimed the sisters were heavily into gaming. The note suggested the girls felt their parents were trying to stop their interests. They wrote that their love for Korean culture was being “killed” by the rules at home.
They also listed other things they were interested in, including Thai, Japanese, Chinese, and English music and movies. Cartoons like Peppa Pig, Elsa, and Ariel were mentioned, along with survival games such as Evil Game and Poppy Playtime.
The note also talked about their fourth sister, Devu. The girls claimed they wanted to pass on their interests to her, but their parents refused. One line read: “You introduced her to Bollywood, which we hated more than our lives.”
The sisters wrote that they felt hurt when they were asked to “educate” Devu instead of sharing Korean culture with her.
“We felt bad about this, so we made a decision and made Devu our enemy, because no one at home allowed her to be like us,” the note said. Another part added: “So, from that day on, we separated Devu from ourselves and told her that we are Korean and K-Pop, and you are Indian and Bollywood.”
The note also showed how extreme the girls’ thinking had become. They wrote about their anger at the idea of marrying an Indian man someday. “We liked and loved a Korean, but you wanted to make us marry an Indian. We never expected anything like this. So that’s why we are committing suicide,” the note read.
Later reports suggested that all three sisters may not have jumped on purpose. According to Indian media, two of the girls might have fallen accidentally while trying to pull the third sister back from the edge.
A resident of the building, Arun Singh, said he saw the incident happen. Speaking to NDTV, he said he noticed someone sitting on the balcony railing late at night. “I couldn’t figure out if it was a man or a woman since I was standing at a distance,” Singh said. “I called my wife and said that someone was trying to jump and I should do something.”
He added that he thought it might be a couple arguing.
Singh said another girl came out and tried to pull the person away from the railing and succeeded at first. But soon after, the person climbed back again. “A small girl came and hugged the person sitting on the railing tightly,” Singh recalled.
“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,” he added.
“One of them seemed determined to jump while the two others were trying to save them, but all three fell headfirst.”
After seeing the fall, Singh ran downstairs and called the police and an ambulance. He claimed the ambulance took nearly 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,” he told NDTV.
He said he made around 10 to 15 calls before help came. Singh also said he did not personally know the girls or their family.
Police later confirmed the deaths.
“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. Television footage from Wednesday morning showed the bodies lying outside the building as their mother cried loudly. Neighbours stood nearby in shock, unable to believe what had happened.
Inside the girls’ bedroom, investigators found messages written on the wall. Some of the lines read: “I am very very alone” and “make me a hert of broken (sic)”. These words gave a glimpse into the emotional state of the sisters in their final days.
Indian media also reported that the girls may have become addicted to a Korean love game called “We are not Indians” during the Covid-19 pandemic. The game allegedly gave players a series of tasks. The final task was said to involve dying by suicide. The game also reportedly gave players Korean names, which the sisters began using in real life.
The girls’ father, Chetan Kumar, spoke about the pain of reading the note left behind. “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.
He added quietly, “This should not happen to any parent or child.”
