Indian American friend may be reason for death of Karan Joseph

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Indian pianist and musician, Karan Joseph, who graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston, committed suicide by jumping off of the 12th floor from his friend, Rishi Shah’s apartment in Bandra, Mumbai.

According to his father, Thomas Joseph, Karan moved from Bangalore to Mumbai and had been living with Shah for a month.

A Hindustan Times reports states that Karan had been out partying the night before and was texting his friends asking for help.

“The friends (Shah and Suzana Uusmaa) in the statement said that the three met in the night and were listening to music and eating food the whole night. But later at around 3 a.m., Karan got a call and left the house for a while and later came back at around 7 a.m.,” said police.

According to the police, since the time he came in, Karan looked depressed and was just sitting at the window looking at the view and when both of his friends asked him what was wrong, he refused to answer; instead he just jumped from the window, ending his life.

According to a NDTV report, Shah told the police, “On Sept. 9, Karan came to my house around 7-7:30 a.m. At the time, my friend Suzana and I were at home. She was asleep. At around 8 a.m., she woke up and came outside. We were all listening to songs and chatting. Following that, Karan told me that the night before, he was at a party at Tej Brar’s residence with a friend, where Sohel and Varun and 10 to 15 more friends were present. Karan said his friends at the party were upset with him but he didn’t give any reason. I told him not to take these things seriously, just avoid whatever happened and enjoy the music. After that, my cook gave us three glasses of juice. Then, when I saw Karan, he was seated at the window and had one leg down. Before I could think or do anything, he jumped.”

But the Mumbai Mirror suggests something different by looking at Karan’s Facebook account, they determined that he was being bullied and that too by Shah, who is an Indian-American entrepreneur and the CEO and publisher of Crossbones Media that publishes RAVE, a magazine that promotes homegrown music.

“We suspect Shah has accessed Karan’s phone and he had also sent several messages from Karan’s phone to Karan’s mother Tina praising himself. Everyone in the music industry knows how Shah behaves with people. He had even bullied Karan in a video posted on Facebook which was criticized by all artistes in the industry. Karan was shy by nature and knew his piano well,” said Clayton Hogermeer, one of Karan’s friends.

Police have also learnt that Karan had been to another friend’s house earlier, in Bandra itself and are investigating the reason for what could have lead to the incident, although no suicide note was left by the musician.

It has been said that he has died of multiple fractures and a post mortem has also identified no evidence of assault.

“We have handed the body to the family who carried a prayer meeting at St. Andrews Church in Bandra West and later cremated him at Shivaji Park crematorium,” said a police officer.

Several people from the music industry and his friends gathered to pay him last respects however, Shah was not an attendee.