Courtesy FB, hotel staff almost saved boy

More than 100 people saw Arjun Bharadwaj break open the glass window of the posh Bandra hotel and jumped to death, but most were busy clicking photos and shooting videos of the gory incident.

The 24-year-old college student streamed live a video on Facebook about steps to commit suicide before leaping to death from the 19th floor of the hotel on Monday evening.

Police told this newspaper that Bharadwaj had on March 28 asked some of his friends about ways to commit suicide.

“Bharadwaj had slipped into depression since he was not faring well in his studies,” Pandit Thackeray, senior inspector of Bandra police station, said.

Bharadwaj was a student of Narsee Monjee College at Vileparle. He stayed in the college hostel and had checked into the hotel on Monday. “He checked in at 3am on Monday and booked the room in the name of Milind Mehra. We are trying to locate Milind and find out how Bharadwaj managed his I-card,” he said.

As the youth streamed live his suicide tutorial, a friend of Bharadwaj alerted the hotel staff. “One of his friends called and informed the hotel staff about him. But they could not locate the youth since he had booked the room somebody’s else’s name,” said Sanjay Kadam, zonal Assistant Commissioner of Police.

“Bharadwaj’s friend again called the hotel and shared his mobile number to help them locate him,” he said.

Once the hotel staff managed to locate his room, the hotel’s security in-charge, Nilesh Sawant, went to the 19th floor and tried to open the door. “When no one responded, Sawant tried to unlocked the door with the master key. But Bharadwaj had bolted it from inside,” Kadam said.

It took the staff a few minutes to break open the door. “The moment Sawant and his associates entered the room, Bharadwaj jumped from the window,” an employee said.