Six teenage girls who are friends consumed poison in Bihar to express solidarity with one of them over her failed love affair. Three of them died while the rest are battling for their lives.

The incident occurred in Chiraila village under Aurangabad district, around 170km southwest from state capital Patna, on Friday evening. The victims were in the age group of 12 to 15 years.

The villagers said the girls had gone towards a pond on Friday evening. Later, some people noticed them writhing in pain on the ground at an agriculture farm and raised an alarm.

Their family members rushed them to the nearest hospital from where they were referred to Anugrah Narayan Magadh Medical College and Hospital of Gaya district. Three were declared brought dead, while the other three are receiving medical attention.

Police visited the hospital and the girls’ village to conduct a probe into the incident. “Our preliminary enquiry suggests that one of the deceased girls, Anisha Kumari, had a love affair with her brother’s brother-in-law. She took along all her friends on Friday to propose marriage to him. However, the boy turned it down, leaving the girl devastated. She consumed some poisonous substance and her friends also followed suit,” Aurangabad SP Kantesh Kumar Mishra said.

Mishra said that further investigations were being done to ascertain why five other friends of Anisha also consumed poison, and whether there could be some other aspects related to the incident.

The police are also trying to find out the kind of poisonous substance the girls consumed and how they managed to get hold of it. The three bodies were sent for postmortem and efforts were also underway to interrogate the boy whose name cropped up in the incident.