They bolted the door shut before jumping from the window one by one

They bolted the door shut before jumping from the window one by one

Absolutely horrifying.

Three child sisters jumped to their deaths from the balcony of their ninth-floor home after their parents confiscated their phones.

The tragedy took place at around 2.15am on Wednesday in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad, India.

The sisters - Pakhi, 12, Prachi, 14, and Vishika, 16 - were allegedly upset that their father had taken away their mobile phone.

In the early hours of February 4, the sisters gathered at their balcony and bolted the door shut before jumping from the window one by one.

Local reports claim their screams were loud enough to wake their parents, neighbours, and security guards at the family's apartment complex.

But by the time the parents broke down the door, it was too late.

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 reports in India this 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

It was later reported that two of the sisters may have fallen accidentally while attempting to hold the third sister back.

The sisters were said to be so obsessed with Korean culture - including movies, music, and TV series - that they had taken on Korean names.

'For the past few days, they had been denied access to a mobile phone, a restriction that appeared to have affected them,' said Deputy Commissioner of Police Nimish Patel. 

Police also found an eight-page suicide note, written on the pages of a pocket diary.  

Their devastated father, Chetan Kumar, described what he had read. 

'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.

The note also read: 'You tried to distance us from Koreans, but now you know how much we love Koreans.'

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)'. 

'It is clear that the girls were influenced by Korean culture and have mentioned it in the suicide note,' said Patel.

Their phone addiction is said to have begun during the COVID-19 pandemic, and became so overpowering that they decided to drop out of school two years ago.

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.