‘Maria, Aliza, Cindy’: Ghaziabad sisters had big social media following - Just Korean game or something far more troubling? 

• Three Ghaziabad sisters died after falling from their apartment's ninth floor
• The sisters, inspired by K-pop, gained a large online following.
• Family's financial struggles and loss of online access preceded the tragedy

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Ghaziabad triple suicide: The three sisters, aged 12, 14 and 16, who died after falling from the ninth floor of their apartment building in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad on Wednesday morning, had created a social media account using Korean names and had built a sizeable online following.

Read: The words Ghaziabad sisters left behind on their wall

Read: 'Death would be better than beatings'

Read: 'Yesterday was final task of Korean game, sorry mummy-papa'

The girls, Nishika, Prachi and Pakhi, identified themselves online as Maria, Aliza and Cindy. Investigators said the sisters were deeply influenced by Korean pop culture and spent most of their time consuming K-dramas, K-pop music and playing online interactive games.

Police believe their attachment to the online space grew so strong that it became their primary source of emotional comfort. According to the report, the sisters’ father, Chetan Kumar, came to know about the social media account around 10 days before the incident.

He allegedly deleted the account and confiscated their mobile phones. Police said the family was facing serious financial difficulties. Chetan Kumar, a stock trader, is allegedly under a debt burden of nearly Rs 2 crore. Investigators said he sold the mobile phones to pay an electricity bill, effectively cutting the sisters off from the online world they were deeply attached to.

Chetan also threatened the children he would marry them off. To this, the sisters allegedly responded that they could not get married, as they were not Indian but Korean, "How dare you make us leave Korean life?"

Investigators said the sisters were obsessed with Korean culture and strongly identified with it. They referred to each other by Korean names taken from television shows and believed they were more connected to South Korea than to their immediate surroundings. Police described this as the sisters living in a “parallel world” shaped by online content.

A diary recovered from the room, believed to have been written by the 14-year-old sister, sheds light on growing bitterness towards their parents. In the diary, the sisters listed 19 things they felt their parents disapproved of, including Korean dramas, K-pop and artists from China, Japan, Thailand, the US and the UK.

They also mentioned cartoon shows such as Shinchan and Doraemon, along with mobile games, which they felt were criticised unfairly. In one entry, the sisters wrote that they loved Korean actors and K-pop groups more than even their own family members.