Three sisters ages 16, 14 and 12 died early Wednesday after falling from the balcony of their family’s ninth-floor apartment in a sprawling high-rise complex outside New Delhi, police said. The fall happened around 2:15 a.m. local time, and investigators recovered a handwritten note from the girls’ bedroom.
Police said the case is being investigated as a suicide involving minors, with early attention on whether an online game or social content may have influenced the sisters’ actions. Detectives are analyzing messages, search histories and app activity from a seized cellphone while they interview relatives and neighbors. Officials said the girls were pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. The sisters’ names were not released by authorities as of Friday, pending family and child-protection protocols. The case has drawn national attention because of its timing, the young ages involved and reports that the siblings were deeply immersed in Korean pop culture and an unnamed interactive app before the incident.
The fall occurred in a cluster of towers known locally as the Bharat City complex, a dense development on the northeastern edge of the capital region. Police said the children’s father called for help from the apartment and alerted building security as residents awoke to alarms and shouting in the courtyard below. Officers and paramedics arrived within minutes and cordoned off a landscaped area where the sisters were found. “At this stage, it appears to be a suicide,” a Ghaziabad police spokesperson said, adding that the department would release additional information after a review of digital evidence and forensic reports. Detectives collected the eight-page note, a diary and wall writings from the girls’ room, according to officials briefed on the scene.
Investigators said they are working to establish a precise sequence leading up to the fall, including whether one sister moved first and the others followed, or whether all three climbed the balcony railing together. Neighbors reported hearing a commotion inside the apartment before the family called for help. The parents told officers the sisters had become increasingly withdrawn over the past two years and gravitated to Korean dramas, music and a mobile game referenced in their writings. Police emphasized that no specific app has been publicly identified and cautioned that the note reflects the children’s state of mind rather than confirmed facts. No foul play is suspected at this time, and authorities said no other residents were injured.
The complex sits off a crowded arterial road that feeds commuters into the National Capital Region, where high-rise living has expanded quickly over the past decade. Residential towers ring shared courtyards and small playgrounds, with narrow drive lanes that can complicate overnight emergency access. Records in recent years show scattered complaints about balcony safety in the region’s housing societies, though enforcement is split between local police and private management firms. In this case, officials said the balcony railing met the minimum height standard and showed no obvious structural damage. Building staff provided elevator logs and camera footage covering the lobby and ground-level approaches but not the family’s apartment interior or the balcony itself.
Police said standard procedures include autopsies for each child at the district hospital and the collection of toxicology samples. Forensic teams photographed the balcony, measured distances to the ground-level landing area and bagged several notebooks for handwriting analysis. Detectives also took custody of a smartphone believed to be shared among the siblings, along with a Wi-Fi router for connection logs. Authorities said the girls had been out of school since the pandemic years, according to family statements, and spent long hours watching and discussing Korean content. Officers are tracing the source of messages cited in the note, which mentioned an interactive “love game” without naming a developer or platform. The father was cooperating with police and provided passcodes and earlier chat histories, officials said.
The deaths echo a handful of high-profile cases in India over the past decade in which rumored online “challenges” were later found to be loosely connected to broader internet subcultures rather than a single verified app. Child welfare advocates in the Delhi region have urged caution in attributing motive to a brand-name game before police finish technical analysis. Past court filings in unrelated cases show that social media speculation has at times forced platforms to issue statements or remove unrelated content after tragedies involving teens. In Ghaziabad, police have not announced any platform contact or takedown requests tied to this case and have not released screenshots from the phone.
Under Indian law, police will submit an inquest report to a local magistrate with autopsy findings, witness statements and any recovered digital evidence. If investigators determine that external provocation, abetment or child endangerment played a role, the case could be referred for criminal review. Officials said initial findings would be compiled within several days, followed by a full file once laboratory reports return. The family is expected to receive the girls’ bodies after examinations for private rites. Any public briefing by district officials would likely occur after the magistrate receives the inquest summary and after police finish interviews with immediate relatives.
Residents who gathered near the tower entrance Thursday morning described a heavy police presence, with yellow tape stretched across the courtyard path and officers steering delivery riders away from the scene. A shopkeeper on the ground floor said elevators were intermittently held for investigators and that building staff posted a notice asking residents to avoid the area. In the common garden, neighbors spoke in hushed tones as workers swept gravel and removed shoe prints around the cordon. “It was very quiet at first, then we heard a shout and the sound of people running,” said a man who lives in a nearby tower. Others recalled seeing officers carrying brown evidence envelopes from the building as dawn broke.
As of Friday, authorities had not identified the game referenced in the sisters’ writings and had not released the full contents of the note. Police said they will update the case after autopsy reports and an initial digital forensics review. A timeline for additional statements was not announced. The investigation remains active, and the apartment tower has returned to normal operations with security guards posted at the gate.
Author note: Last updated February 6, 2026.