Representational Image. News 18
Ghaziabad: Two deaths by suicide in two different engineering colleges, both victims from second year, allegedly with a common cause involving the same messaging app and the same group on the app.
The two B.Tech second year students were allegedly part of an investment group on Telegram and both sent money to the same group admin minutes before they jumped off separate high-rise buildings on November 1 and 3.
As per reports, Sakshi (20), a student of B.Tech second year jumped off her 12th floor balcony at Gaur Global Village to death on November 1. While Hardik (19), also student of B.Tech second year was found dead in Apex the Cremlin society on November 3. He had reportedly jumped off the 17th floor, police said.
From the police investigation so far, it has come to light that both the students took to suicide after failing to get back the money they had invested.
Ghaziabad police have now written to Telegram asking for information on the group of which they both were members. Parents of both the deceased students, however, fear that the two were being blackmailed by a bigger nexus of cyber criminals who are targeting students.
How it happened?
Sakshi’s death by suicide
Sakshi lived in Gaur Global Village housing society, located in the Crossing Republic area. Her father is a bank employee and the family lived on the 12th floor. Sakshi was student of a local engineering college. She died after falling from the 12th floor at 4 pm on November 1.
After hearing of Sakshi’s death, her friends came to her house and told her father that she was demanding money from them until a few hours before her death.
Shocked, the family members checked her bank statement and found that she had sent around Rs91309 to different numbers through UPI in 11 transactions. Sakshi had sent Rs25,000 through IMPS.
Apart from her account, Sakshi had also sent around Rs66,309 from her father’s account to another UPI id on November 1. Her father informed that she used one of his other accounts also on October 31 to send some Rs25,000 to an another account in Gorakhpur.
Her elder sister, who works with a private company told reporters that Sakshi had first sent Rs100 to one of these accounts. “Ever since then the amount kept increasing, we believe she was being blackmailed, and police should investigate this thoroughly,” she said.
Hardik’s death by suicide
It occurred on November 3 at Apex the Kremlin Society, located in Siddharth Vihar of Vijayanagar police station area. As per reports, Hardik lived in Pratap Vihar area. He came to the above-mentioned society probably in the afternoon after telling security guard that he has a meeting in a 17th floor flat. Shortly afterwards his body was found on the ground floor while his backpack was still on the 17th floor.
Hardik’s family informed police that he had no bank account. However, he used her mother’s account to send some Rs40,000 in several transactions to a UPI id. It was revealed after her mother checked her statement and found suspicious online transactions as she did not use online banking.
Hardik’s maternal uncle, who works with Life Insurance Corporation, has been quoted in media reports saying that he showed no signs of depression or weakness as even on the day of death, he went to gym. Later, he went to college for a practical exam. “He came back home at around 11 AM to give house keys to his younger brother,” he said.
He added that Hardik was with his friends till afternoon and they have no clue how he reached the society. “He had fear of heights, he can’t take the extreme step on his own, we suspect that someone pushed him off 17th floor and staged it as a suicide, this case should be investigated by CBI as we fear he was targeted by a bigger nexus,” he said.
What police say
Circle Officer Anshu Jain told a local daily that Sakshi and Hardik both were added in a Telegram group and their mobile phone records are implying that they invested money with the group’s admin,” she said, adding, the social media app ‘Telegram’ has been asked to reveal details of the group admin.
Meanwhile, SP (City), Ghaziabad, Nipun Agrawal, told reporters that an FIR has been lodged in the cases of suicides by two B.Tech students.
“Prima facie it looks that they had invested some money and they took the extreme step after failing to get it back,” he said, adding that detailed investigation of the Telegram group and its members are being done.
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