India, Aug. 24 -- A year before a desperate standoff at a Maharashtra hilltop ended with three members of one family dead, the same teenager had reportedly stood at the same cliff with suicidal intent. Police had then managed to persuade him to step away.

On Friday, however, a similar crisis unfolded again at Khavda Hill in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, this time ending in a fatal sequence of falls involving the teenager and both his parents.

The 19-year-old, identified as Kunal Chandgude, had reportedly gone to the hill after a dispute at home involving an iPhone and its instalment payments. For nearly three hours, his parents, police officers, firefighters and local residents tried to convince him to leave the cliff edge. When his father...