Six people die of suffocation due to burning fireplace in Delhi

Jan 14, 2024

New Delhi [India], January 14 : Six people sleeping by a burning fireplace died due to suffocation on Sunday at two different places in the national capital. The first case came to light from Kheda Kalan village of Alipur police station area of Outer North Delhi, where a husband, wife and two children suffocated while sleeping after lighting a fireplace. In the Indrapuri area of Delhi, two youths died similarly due to suffocation while sleeping.
Outer Delhi's Additional DCP B Bharat Reddy said in a conversation with ANI "Today at 6:40 am, a PCR call was received that four people were lying unconscious inside the house in Kheda Kalan village, after which the team reached the spot by breaking the window and entering inside the house. Four people were lying dead on the spot. Initial investigation found that all four had died due to suffocation while sleeping by lighting a fireplace. The real cause of death will be clear in the postmortem report."
The killed were identified as 40-year-old tanker driver Rakesh Dinkar, his 38-year-old wife Lalita Devi and their two children Piyush and Sunny, who were 8 and 7 years old respectively.
Lalita Devi's sister Neelam said that she received a call from Rakesh Dinkar at around 2 in the night. The call revealed that his sister and both the children were not well, were fainting again and again, and the sounds of dogs and cats were coming from the terrace.
She said that he asked her to come in the morning and on reaching their house the next day, four were already dead. Neelam suspected that the deaths happened due to ghosts.
In Delhi's Indrapuri area, two people died after sleeping by lighting a fireplace in a house. The deceased were identified as Abhishek, and Ram Bahadur, both were residents of Nepal. The police sent the bodies of both the deceased for postmortem.
In both cases, the police initiated action under 174 CRPC.
More details on both cases are awaited.