First digital path emerges in Ghaziabad sisters’ suicide case, cellphone offered days earlier than deadly bounce recovered | Ghaziabad Information

GHAZIABAD: Police have recovered a cell phone belonging to one of many three sisters who allegedly died by suicide after leaping from their ninth-floor dwelling in Bharat Metropolis, marking the primary potential digital lead in a case that has to date relied largely on the household’s account.The handset had been offered by their father round 15 days earlier than the ladies’ deaths and was seized from an electronics store in Shalimar Backyard. Police stated the cellphone has been despatched for forensic examination to retrieve deleted knowledge, together with apps, looking historical past and social media exercise.DCP (trans-Hindon) Nimish Patil stated the daddy, Chetan Kumar, had purchased two smartphones about six months in the past for the eldest daughter and her 14-year-old half-sister, hoping they might achieve reputation as YouTubers. “One cellphone was offered about three months in the past, and the second simply 15 days earlier than the incident,” Patil stated.The recovered cellphone was offered for Rs 15,000 and was nonetheless with the store proprietor when police reached the shop on Monday. “All essential knowledge seems to have been deleted earlier than the cellphone was offered. We have now despatched it to a forensic lab to get better deleted content material, together with social media accounts and apps,” Patil stated, including that efforts had been additionally underway to hint the second handset by way of surveillance.Investigators consider the telephones may reveal what sort of on-line content material the sisters had been consuming, whether or not they had been in contact with anybody exterior the household, and the way deeply they had been immersed in social media. Police have stated understanding the ladies’ digital footprint is essential to reconstructing the circumstances main as much as their deaths.The sisters — aged 16, 14 and 12 — had been discovered mendacity subsequent to one another on the society premises on February 4, immediately under their ninth-floor condo window. They had been taken to hospital and declared lifeless on arrival.Police stated the ladies had largely lived in isolation for the reason that Covid pandemic, having stopped attending college and remaining lower off from friends. They reportedly spent most of their time consuming on-line content material centred on Korean tradition and had even launched a YouTube channel targeted on Okay-dramas and animated characters, which garnered over 2,000 followers earlier than being deleted about 10 days earlier than their deaths. Officers stated the channel was eliminated after their father objected to what he seen as their rising fixation with Korean tradition.Kumar allegedly advised investigators that his daughters had been “residing in their very own world” and continuously spoke about going to Korea after watching reels and different social media content material.About three weeks earlier than their deaths, the ladies had been taken to a personal tutor, the place they launched themselves utilizing Korean names — Maria, Aliza and Cindy — and claimed they’d been adopted from Korea and China. The tutor advised police the sisters had been extraordinarily weak in research, battling primary calculations and even recognising numbers or copying letters from textbooks.“They’d not been going to highschool since Covid and didn’t have books. Once I tried primary additions and multiplications, they couldn’t recognise numbers,” the tutor stated, including that dwelling assignments had been left incomplete and the ladies confirmed little educational focus.When questioned about their lack of preparation, the tutor stated the ladies repeated that they’d been adopted from China and Korea — a declare their father later linked to their obsession with Korean tradition. Disturbed by their situation and progress, the tutor stated she stopped educating them and returned the charges round 20 days earlier than the incident.Police stated the tutor’s account has been added to the case file as they await forensic inputs from the seized cell phone.