Hotel window fall kills girl Child drops to death from grille-less window

picture prabin khaling

TT'; NIRMAL MANGARGangtok, Dec. 5: A seven-year-old girl, who had come to Gangtok with her parents yesterday evening, fell from a third-storey grille-less window of a hotel and died minutes later. Taveshi Tripathi was playing in her room when her parents went to the reception area downstairs to ask about local sightseeing trips. The Tripathis from Madhya Pradesh had checked into Himalayan Heights Hotel at 7pm.

 They kept their luggage and went downstairs leaving Taveshi in the room. “The couple and the child had checked into Hotel Himalayan Heights on Paljor Stadium Road around 7pm. The parents went to the reception, leaving the girl in the room. She climbed the bedroom window and fell down and landed on a concrete surface,” said Tshering Sherpa, the officer in charge of Gangtok police station.

 A police officer in Gangtok said the window from which the girl fell is at least 100ft above the ground. None of the windows in the rooms at Himalayan Heights have grilles and most of them allow a majestic view of the Kanchenjungha on a clear day. Subash, the girl’s father, is a Grade C central government employee and mother Sushma is a housewife. 

 The parents rushed Taveshi to the nearby STNM Hospital. Some of the hotel staff also accompanied them. The girl was declared dead on arrival. The parents have left Sikkim for Siliguri today. The family had booked the hotel for two nights and were supposed to visit Chhangu Lake and Baba Mandir today. 

Their trip ended barely 20 minutes after check-in. Some people on a nearby road saw the girl falling from the window and informed the hotel. “There is no such rule of putting grilles on windows in hotels, but most of the hotels in Gangtok do have window bars to ensure safety,” said Luckendra Rasaily, a former president of the Travel Agents’ Association of Sikkim. 

 The senior administrator at STNM Hospital said the girl had sustained a head injury and was profusely bleeding when she was brought to the hospital. He said the body has been handed over to the parents after the autopsy and a case of unnatural death has been registered at sadar police station in Gangtok.