A 38-year-old man allegedly threw his two-year-old daughter from the 23rd floor of a residential tower before dying by suicide by jumping from the same height in Joyville Society in Sector 102 on Monday, police said.
Police said the incident took place between 7.50am and 8am when security guards heard a loud noise and rushed to the spot. Investigators said they found the man and the child lying in a pool of blood and immediately alerted the police control room.
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According to a police officer privy to the matter, the man lived in a rented two-bedroom apartment with his wife and younger daughter. “However, he went to another tower and reached the 23rd floor with his daughter in his lap using the lift. Thereafter, he first threw the daughter from the height and then jumped himself too,” the officer said, adding CCTV footage confirms the incident. The man’s wife was reportedly at home at the time of the incident.
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Investigators said both were rushed to a hospital, and the toddler was still alive when she was placed in the ambulance. However, doctors declared both of them dead at the hospital. Police said the deceased was originally from Nangloi in Delhi and had got married in 2013. The couple owned a school in Delhi as well as a restaurant on the Dwarka expressway in Gurugram.
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Sandeep Turan, public relations officer of Gurugram police, said the man had been suffering from night blindness since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. “He had lost complete vision from one of his eyes, and the condition of his other eye was deteriorating fast, due to which he was under mental duress,” he said.
Turan said the man was undergoing treatment for the condition but had not shown improvement. “From the preliminary investigation, it has surfaced that due to all these health issues, he died by suicide with his daughter. The family has also denied any foul play,” he said.
Police said that on the complaint of the deceased’s brother submitted at the Rajendra Park police station, an inquiry under section 194 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita was carried out. The bodies were later handed over to the family after autopsies.
Discussing suicides can be triggering for some. However, suicides are preventable. A few major suicide prevention helpline numbers in India are 011-23389090 from Sumaitri (Delhi-based) and 044-24640050 from Sneha Foundation (Chennai-based).