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The apartment in Mango, from the fourth floor (circled in red) of which Sipha fell on Friday. (Animesh Sengupta)
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A little girl, visiting her grandparents in Jamshedpur, fell off their fourth-floor balcony on Friday afternoon.
Twenty-two-month-old Sipha Khan — who had come from Ranchi just two days ago — was rushed to Tata Main Hospital with grievous head injuries. Doctors declared her brought dead.
The tragedy took place at the six-storey Kohinoor Tower on Old Purulia Road in Azadnagar police station area of Mango, where Sipha’s grandfather Mohammed Salimuddin and his family live.
According to the child’s uncle Mohammed Ehtasam, Sipha was playing in the balcony while others in the family were having lunch inside.
“It must have been around 2.30pm. I was done eating and was taking a nap when my sister Sana’s screams woke me up,” Ehtasam said. “Her daughter and my niece had fallen off the balcony. We wasted no time and rushed her to hospital. But, we could not save her,” he broke down.
According to Ehtasam, Sipha had come with her mother to Jamshedpur only two days ago. Her father, Hassan Khan, is a businessman at Mesra in Ranchi district.
He said they had no idea how Sipha who had just learnt to walk managed to scale the near four feet balcony railing, which was part concrete. There was no chair or any other furniture that could have helped the little girl climb up the railing, he pointed out.
Neighbours, living on the first floor of the apartment, were the first to spot the toddler, her head crushed on the concrete below. “They screamed and my sister looked down the balcony to see her daughter lying in a pool of blood,” Ehtasam, a government employee, said.
Police have allowed the body to be taken to Ranchi without an autopsy following requests from the family.
Sub-inspector Deepak Kumar of Azadnagar police station said they did not insist on a post-mortem because it was a clear case of accident.
“When bereaved family members approached us, we could not turn down their pleas. After all, she was just a child,” Kumar, who is also the officer in charge of Azadnagar, said. He added that they had registered a case of accidental death.
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