The deaths of three sisters who jumped from their ninth-floor apartment in Ghaziabad have underscored long-standing concerns among psychiatrists that many young people in India with mental health challenges remain undiagnosed and without help.

While investigators attempt to probe the precise sequence of events and the possible influence of an online game, which allegedly originated in South Korea, psychiatrists caution
that such an outcome typically points to deeper pre-existing mental health challenges.

Police officers have said they received information around 2.15am on Wednesday that the three girls, aged 16, 14 and 12, had jumped off the balcony of their ninth-floor flat. After preliminary inquiries, the police said the sisters had been “addicted” to mobile phone usage and an online Korean task-based interactive game.

A police officer also said the girls had not attended school for the past three years, and investigators are trying to determine when the mobile phone and gaming addiction began, a PTI report said.

“This is most unlikely to have been an impromptu outcome of a single trigger event,” said Deepak Raheja, a psychiatrist in New Delhi and director of Hope Care India, a mental health treatment centre. “This was most likely the culmination of many things that have happened over time.”

Raheja said even if an online game provided the immediate trigger, the sisters would likely have shown behavioural changes in the days or weeks beforehand. These changes could include increased time spent on the game, withdrawal from routine activities, or social isolation.

The preliminary information released by the authorities suggests deeper mental health challenges, said Vivek Agrawal, professor of psychiatry at the King George Medical College in Lucknow and chairperson of the child psychiatry panel of the Indian Psychiatry Society.

“Parents sometimes see only Internet or game addiction,” Agrawal said. “But it can signal deeper problems — at home, at school, or in their social environment — that parents might often overlook.”

A 2021 review of 50 studies across 19 Indian states had found that 20 to 40 per cent of college students showed signs of Internet addiction, highlighting the scale of the problem among young adults.

Members of the Indian Psychiatry Society had cautioned last month that a vast majority of patients with mental health disorders remain undiagnosed and do not receive timely or adequate treatment.

“About 80 per cent of those who need psychiatric care do not receive it,” said Savita Malhotra, professor of psychiatry at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh and the president of the society. “The barriers include stigma,low awareness and the absence of primary-level mental health services.”

Malhotra declined to speculate about the Ghaziabad tragedy but noted that clinical evidence shows adolescents are increasingly addicted to social media and online games.

“We see adolescents who stop going to school and who don’t sleep enough, spending abnormal hours on online games,” she said. “Multiple factors likely contribute — access to technology, online games targeted at children, the legitimisation of mobile phones for education since Covid, and changes in parenting practices.”

She added that some children say they cannot give up their phones because homework is assigned through them.

Experts say stigma and low awareness often cause early mental health symptoms to be dismissed and attributed instead to stress, personal weakness, or fleeting mood changes.