Alwar teenager hangs self for mobile phone

A 17-year-old girl hanged herself in Alwar on Tuesday evening as her family couldn’t afford a mobile phone for her, the police said. The girl was a class 11 student of a private school.

SHO of Kotawali police station Vimal Dixit said Pooja Sharma often faced flak in school as her family couldn’t pay the fees on time.

“Her mother told us that the girl wanted a mobile phone for self-study,” he added.

The girl’s father, Bheem Prasad Sharma, works at a dhaba, and her mother works as domestic help in nearby houses. The family hails from Nepal but has been living in Alwar for 17 years, the police said.

The girl has three siblings. Her mother’s parents also live with them.

Police said that the girl’s father is an alcoholic and splurged his salary on drinking. The house ran on the mother’s income, Dixit said. Pooja wanted a mobile phone because she was unable to attend school regularly. She also felt peer pressure when she saw most of her classmates carrying phones.

The girl’s mother said that she had assured the girl that she will buy her a phone this month but the girl ended her life on Tuesday evening.

When the incident occurred, the girl’s mother was at work and her three siblings were in the other room. When the mother returned home, she found Pooja hanging from the ceiling fan. Pooja was rushed to a hospital where the doctors declared her brought dead.

In March, an 18-year-old boy, upset with his daily wager parents’ failure to buy him a smartphone, had jumped to death in Bundi.