Delhi cold wave: Six people, including four members of a family, died after allegedly inhaling toxic fumes from coal braziers in two separate incidents in New Delhi, officials said on Sunday (January 14). This comes as the national capital is reeling under harsh weather conditions as the temperature dropped to 3.5 degrees Celsius this morning, marking the lowest this season for the city. There were two children who were among the four killed in the incident in the Alipur area in outer north Delhi, the police said.
The first incident
The deceased persons were identified as Rakesh (40), who was a driver of a water tanker, his wife Lalita (38), their two sons Piyush (8), and Sunny (7), they added.
"On Sunday morning around 7 am, a PCR call was received at Alipur police station, saying one person was found lying unconscious at Khera Kalan village in Delhi. Immediately staff was rushed to the spot," a senior police officer said.
The police said that they found the door of the room to be locked from inside.
"Our teams first broke the glass window and managed to open the door. Later, the team found four people inside of the room in an unconscious state. They were rushed to the hospital, where doctors declared them dead," the officer said.
The forensic team and the crime team found a coal brazier (angithi) from inside the room, the police said.
Prima facie, it seems that all four people died due to suffocation, the police said, while also adding that further investigation into the matter is underway under section 174 of the CrPC.
The second incident
In a similar incident, two Nepal-native men were found dead in their room after they allegedly inhaled toxic fumes from a coal brazier in Inderpuri area of west Delhi, police said.
The deceased were identified as Ram Bahadur (57) and Abhishek (22).
Police said Bahadur was a driver by profession and Abhishek was working as a domestic help.
"A call was received at 8.30 am that two persons residing in a room are not opening their rented house door," a police officer said.
Police said that it was found that the two men were locked in their third-floor room from the inside.
"The door was forced open and two people were found unconscious. They were rushed to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared them dead,” the officer said.
“One ‘angithi’ with burnt residue was found in the room. There was one window that was found to be closed. No injuries were found on the bodies," he added.
(With PTI inputs)
