'People around me are threatening me. I feel abandoned'

Karan's father, Thomas Joseph (left), and brother Aashik go to Cooper Hospital to claim his body. Pics/Tanvi Phondekar

Karan Joseph had sent a despairing message to his mother just a day before his suicide, to tell her he was in trouble. The indie musician had told her that he was in financial distress and felt threatened by people around him. His mother tried to calm him down, never imagining that the very next morning, he would jump to death from a Bandra high-rise.

Karan's father, Thomas Joseph (in blue), and brother Aashik go to Cooper Hospital to take his body

On Sunday, his father Thomas Joseph went to Cooper Hospital to take his body after the autopsy was over.

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He told mid-day, "On Friday, around 8 pm, Karan had messaged his mother saying he was in trouble. Without specifying any name, Karan said that people around him were threatening him. He spoke about his financial problems and how most of his friends had abandoned him."

(Above) Karan Joseph, and his mother Tina at the funeral. Pic/Satej Shinde

'We soothed him'
"Throughout the conversation, his mother was trying to calm him and, by the end of the chat, he did sound fine and emotionally stable. The conversation ended in such a way that though we were worried about our son, we never thought that he would commit suicide the next day," recalled Thomas, a Bengaluru-based paediatrician.

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Karan's younger brother Aashik Joseph added, "My brother was a really fun-loving guy; he was never depressed."

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Thomas said that Karan had been shuttling between Mumbai and Bengaluru for the past four years.

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"He used to love Mumbai and its fast life. In the last four years, he would keep coming here, and would rarely be in Bengaluru, as he had to work in Mumbai," he said.

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