‘Adopted from Korea’: Private tutor recounts claims by Ghaziabad sisters weeks before suicide; were ‘very weak’ in studies

GHAZIABAD: The three sisters who alleged died by suicide at their house in Bharat City last week were recently taken to a private tutor, where they introduced themselves with Korean names - Maria, Aliza and Cindy - and told her they had been adopted from Korea and China.The tutor found them "very weak" in studies, struggling with even basic calculations and failing to recognise numbers."They were very weak in studies, but I decided to give them time because they had not been going to school since Covid. They didn't have books, so I gave them one each for English, maths and Hindi. When I gave them some basic calculations, like additions and multiplications, they failed to recognise numbers.

They couldn't even copy numbers or letters from textbooks," the tutor told TOI.Home assignments were left incomplete too. "I asked them to learn tables of 2 and get ready for a test the next day. But they came without any preparations. When I sought to know the reason, they gave a weird answer - that they had been adopted from China and Korea. I asked their father about it. He told me about their fixation with everything Korean," she added.

With their lack of focus on studies, the tutor decided against continuing to teach the girls. Around 20 days before their alleged suicides, she returned her fees to their father, Chetan Kumar.On Feb 4, the three sisters - aged 16, 14 and 12 - were found lying next to each other on the society premises in Bharat City, directly below their ninth-floor window. They were taken to hospital and declared dead on arrival.The sisters' upbringing was marked by isolation. Since Covid, they had stopped going to school and were not tutored at home either.

Bereft of friends, they became increasingly dependent on each other and on an online fantasy life dominated by Korean culture.They had even launched a YouTube channel last year around K-dramas and cartoon characters - gaining more than 2,000 followers - but it was deleted about 10 days before their deaths. An officer said the channel was removed after their father objected to what he saw as their growing fixation with Korean culture.

Kumar allegedly told interrogators that his daughters were "living in their own world" and repeatedly spoke about going to Korea after watching reels and other social media content.Ghaziabad police have now recovered a mobile phone that belonged to one of the sisters, a development that could potentially be the first digital lead in a case that has largely depended on the family's version. The handset had been sold by their father about 15 days before their deaths and was seized from an electronics shop in Shalimar Garden.

It has been sent for forensic examination to retrieve deleted data.DCP (trans-Hindon) Nimish Patil said Kumar had bought two phones around six months ago for the eldest daughter and her 14-year-old half-sister, believing they would become "famous like YouTubers". "He sold one of the phones three months ago, and the other one just 15 days before the suicides," Patil said.Police said the second phone was sold for Rs 15,000 at the Shalimar Garden shop and the owner still had the device when cops visited on Monday.Both phones are crucial to verify what the sisters were consuming online and whether they were in touch with anyone outside the family. "All crucial data on the phone was already deleted before it was sold. Now, we have sent the mobile set to a forensic lab to recover the data, such as apps and the girls' social media accounts. If we can retrieve the information, we will know about friends the three girls made online, and how much time they spent browsing the internet.

We are trying to recover the second phone with the help of surveillance," Patil said.