10-year-old tells of shock of losing her close friend

“Mamma, so when I was ringing the bell, Gauri was already dead inside and we could not help her?” These are the 10-year-old’s words that now haunt her mother.

DUBAI // A 10-year-old neighbour first suspected that something was amiss when she rang Gauri’s doorbell repeatedly on July 9 but her friend did not open the door.

This was the morning after nine-year-old Gauri was suffocated to death by her father, Santosh Kumar, and he and his wife slit their wrists in a suicide pact, police said.

As they did most evenings, the two girls, along with another friend, were playing together with kitchen toy sets from 5pm until 8.30pm on July 8 in an apartment on the same floor as that of the Kumar family’s in Al Nahda.

“Mamma, so when I was ringing the bell, Gauri was already dead inside and we could not help her?” said the neighbour, words that now haunt her mother.

Every morning and evening for three days after July 9, the child rang Gauri’s doorbell before leaving for India on holiday last Friday. Her mother convinced her that Gauri’s family had left for a short holiday but had forgotten to tell her.

“My daughter is very upset because she has lost a close friend, she does not understand this,” said the mother, a teacher, after informing her daughter about Gauri’s death. “They were playing with kitchen sets in my house the evening before they [the deaths] must have happened.

“Gauri was a talkative, bubbly girl, she asked a lot of questions.

“I haven’t been able to sleep because I have been crying. I’m not thinking of the parents, I’m just thinking of Gauri. It’s horrible.”

The Kumar family had moved into the building a year ago and the girls struck up a friendship eight months ago.

Neighbours had not met Gauri’s father, Santosh Kumar, and had merely exchanged greetings with Gauri’s mother, Manju, as they watched the children play in the corridors each night.

Several neighbours commented on Gauri’s absence since she was close to the other girls.

“I keep thinking that every time I walked in the corridors to exercise this week, there were three bodies lying inside a flat and we did not know,” said the teacher.

“There was someone next door suffering and in pain. I wish they had asked for help and somehow we could have shown them a way out.”

Other neighbours said Gauri had told them the family was not going on holiday to India this year so she would be available to play all summer.

“She was a sweet, caring girl; this is a real shock,” a neighbour said. “We got suspicious and alarmed when friends and relatives came knocking on their door and knocked on our door to ask if we had seen them.”