After tiff with dad, boy threatens to jump to death

KOLKATA: A 16-year-old Class X student from

Dum Dum

kept his parents, neighbours as well as the police and fire brigade personnel on tenterhooks for over five hours on Monday as he walked on third-floor sunshades of the apartment building where he lives. The boy finally climbed down a fire brigade ladder after his father assured to buy him a motorcycle.

The boy’s father is an electrician and the family stays at a second-floor flat in the building. On Monday, his father had a dentist’s appointment at

R G Kar Medical College and Hospital

and asked the boy to accompany him.

He agreed, but insisted on riding the motorcycle. His father refused to allow him to do so as he is underage and doesn’t have a driver’s licence. After an argument, the boy was slapped by his father.

“This happened at 11am. The boy promptly left the flat and climbed onto the roof. From there, he used drainpipes to climb down on a third-floor sunshade, threatening to commit suicide. His relatives and friends did their best to coax him into climbing down, but he wouldn’t listen. By then, the police and fire brigade arrived and fixed a ladder under a sunshade,” a neighbor said.

Instead of climbing down the ladder, the boy kept jumping from one sunshade to the next, threatening to jump down should any attempt be made to rescue him.

This went on till 1pm when he called his brother on his cellphone, asking him to make everybody leave. Fire department or police personnel, who were using loud-hailers to communicate with the boy, refused to heed this. They continued to reason with the boy.

Finally, around 4.30 pm, his father assured the boy that he would buy him a motorcycle. He climbed down the fire brigade ladder after this. The police then took him to hospital in an ambulance for a check-up.

“We would sometimes allow him to ride my motorcycle in the neighbourhood. I did lose my temper as he was adamant today. However, I don’t think he had any plans to commit suicide. He was just trying to scare us. I promised him a motorcycle to get him down,” the father said.

One of the neighbours,

Aparna Chowdhury

, said: “Hearing the hue and cry outside, I rushed out of my house to see the boy standing on the sunshade. People looked on in horror as the teenager was threatening to kill himself. I was surprised at the boy’s audacity. This is unacceptable.”