Five-year-old falls off 12th-floor balcony in Ghaziabad, dies

GHAZIABAD: A five-year-old girl alone at home died after falling off the 12th-floor balcony in a housing society in Crossings Republik on Thursday evening. Nandika, who studied in Class 1 of Indirapuram Public School, was sleeping when her mother Shikha, a homemaker, went downstairs to fetch her elder daughter from tuition classes at GH-7 society. Her father was away at work.
Before leaving, Shikha had switched the TV on and tuned into Nandika’s favourite channel, hoping that her younger daughter would not cry when she wakes up. When the five-year-old girl woke up around 5.20pm, she went to the kitchen to look for her mother. Unable to find her there, she dragged a chair to the balcony adjacent to the kitchen. The girl, it seems, stood on the chair and peered over the 3ft railing. She slipped and fell 12 floors on to a scooter parked below. Shikha was inconsolable about the fact that she took Nandika with her every day when she went downstairs to fetch her elder daughter Sonakshi from the tuition classes. She decided to leave her at home on Thursday as she was in deep sleep. Shikha said it would have taken her just 20 minutes to return home. Nandika’s father Vivek Rajgarhiya has been working as a senior manager with ICICI Bank at its Preet Vihar branch for the past one and a half years. He was at the bank at the time of the accident.
Nandika was spotted by a neighbour, Priyanka, oozing blood on the ground. Priyanka informed Shikha, who, along with a resident of the society, took the girl to a nearby private hospital. Nandika was referred to Fortis Hospital in Noida, where she died during treatment. The family refused to get an autopsy done, Shyamveer Singh, the SHO of Vijay Nagar police station, said.
Rohit Chaudhary, RWA president at the society, said it was the first time such an accident had taken place inside the society since it was constructed in 2010.