Three young sisters threw themselves off their balcony and died in India on Wednesday after their father banned them from playing a Korean “love game” on his phone, according to shocking local reports.
The children, identified as Vishika, 16, Prachi, 14, and Pakhi, 12, were so upset that their parents cut off their access to the addictive game they left behind an eight-page suicide note and then plunged, one after the other, NDTV reported.
Harrowing images from outside their home in Uttar Pradesh, in the outskirts of New Delhi, show the blood stained sidewalks, with local reports capturing their mother sobbing over the bodies.
Grieving father Chetan Kumar said his daughters had an “extreme addiction to everything Korean,” including movies, music, and TV shows.
He said their addiction began during the COVID-19 pandemic and even led to them dropping out of school altogether, according to NDTV.
Once Kumar discovered that his daughters were playing an unknown, inappropriate game on his phone, he cut them off.
He claims they took their own lives out of spite.
“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,’” he said of the note they left behind.
“You tried to distance us from Koreans, but now you know how much we love Koreans,” the note added.
There was also writing on the walls in the girls’ room that read: “I am very, very alone” and “make me a hert of broken” written in English, according to the Daily Mail.
Atul Kumar Singh, the Assistant Commissioner of Police at Uttar Pradesh, said in a statement that a call came in at 2:15 a.m. local time about the girls, with police arriving to find the bodies on the ground.
The sisters were loaded on an ambulance and rushed to Loni Hospital, where they were declared dead, police added.
While initial reports claimed all three sisters jumped off the balcony, conflicting witness statements suggest two of the sisters were trying to hold back the third when they accidentally fell.
“This should not happen to any parent or child,” Kumar said. “I was not aware of the game, or I would have never let them play it.”
The investigation over their deaths is still ongoing, with police yet to identify the specific game that caused the girls’ visceral reaction.
“The investigation so far has not revealed any specific game name, but it is clear that the girls were influenced by Korean culture,” Patel told NDTV.
The prevalence of mobile phones and predatory online games led the World Health Organization (WHO) to add video-game addiction to its International Classification of Diseases database in 2019.
The WHO said the addiction is characterized by “a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behavior” that “takes precedence over other life interests.”
Are you at risk or do you know someone who may need help? Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
