Pratiksha, a nine-year-old Class IV student from Tamil Nadu’s Tiruvallur district, who was very popular on Instagram for her reels, committed suicide on Tuesday after her parents asked her to study. Pratiksha had created nearly 70 reels in the previous six months and was fondly referred to as ‘reels queen’ and ‘Insta queen’ by her followers, friends and neighbours.
At around 8 pm on Tuesday, March 28, the little girl was playing with her friends near her grandmother’s residence when her parents, Krishnamoothy and Karpagam, noticed her. They chastised her for staying out late and told her to go home and study.
The couple handed the child the house keys before leaving to run some errands. After an hour, the parents returned home to discover the house locked from the inside. When they rang the calling bell, no one answered.
Krishnamoothy smashed open the door and was horrified to see Pratiksha dangling from a window grill with a towel around her neck. They immediately rushed her to a hospital. However, the doctors declared her dead.
An investigating officer cited social media as the cause of the death while everyone struggled to comprehend that a child had ended her life. According to the police, unrestricted internet access subjects young brains to a variety of influences leading to such actions.
In related news, the Delhi Police stated that they prevented a suicide attempt from being broadcasted live on Facebook. Delhi Police reported that on Monday night, March 27, at 9 PM, a 25-year-old man attempted to ‘live stream’ his suicide from Nand Nagri, in north-east Delhi, on Facebook.
