Suicide claim falls apart, minor boy held for ‘pushing down’ 15-year-old girl from top of 32-storey Mumbai building

The death occurred around 6 pm when the girl went to meet the boy who was staying in a society in the eastern suburbs of the city. The girl and the boy, who had recently passed the Class 10 exams, were known to each other as they had studied in the same school earlier.

According to the initial investigation, the duo went to another wing of the building and stood in the lobby of the 32nd floor. After some time, the girl’s body fell in the building compound, following which she was rushed to the hospital, where she was declared dead later that night.

The boy told the police that she was under academic pressure and he had left the place after counselling her. He claimed that he had no idea about what transpired after that and suspected that she had ended her life. The girl’s family, however, told the police that she was doing well academically.

As part of the investigation, the police noticed something unusual: the girl’s damaged mobile phone was discovered near a different wing of the building. They believed that if she had jumped while still holding the phone, it should have been found near her body.

Further, the police recorded the statements of a building resident on one of the top floors who said that she heard loud shouts of two people fighting. When she came out of her house, the boy was there, and he allegedly told her he had not heard anything like that. He also allegedly told her that he had come to meet a male friend staying there, which the police found to be false.

Furthermore, the police reviewed CCTV footage from the building and discovered that the duo had taken the lift to the 32nd floor, from which they then took the stairs to the terrace. Sometime later, however, the boy was seen walking alone to the 30th floor and taking the elevator from there. He was then seen going to the gym in the building. In the gym records, his name was scratched off. The police also found that the girl did not provide her real name in the entry register when she entered the society.

“After we found these facts in our investigation, we questioned the juvenile in the presence of his father as per law. We asked about his version that the girl died by suicide. He told us that he had made up the earlier story,” a police officer said.

“The boy claimed that the girl had proposed to him, and he told her he just wanted to remain friends. He said she was also worried about her studies. He said they fought over that issue, following which the girl pushed him. In anger, he pushed her back, causing her to fall off the water tank of the building.”

The police said they would produce the boy before the Juvenile Justice Board Tuesday.