Three of a family choke to death in Delhi

In the second incident of death due to suspected asphyxiation in the last 10 days, three members of a family—a couple and their six-year-old son—died in sleep at their home on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday.

The police said the family had lit a gas heater in the room before sleeping on Tuesday night. The heater was found switched on when the police broke into the room.

The cops suspect that the trio died from excessive inhalation of carbon monoxide. However, the actual cause of death would be known only after the autopsy reports arrive, said the police.

The victims’ relatives called the cops at 8:20 am, saying they were receiving no answer despite repeatedly knocking on the family’s door.

Even their phone calls were not being received. The police arrived at the scene and broke open the door to find the trio under a quilt on the bed. They were immediately rushed to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared them dead on arrival.

“The doors and windows of the two-room flat were tightly shut. There was no way for the poisonous gas to escape,” said a senior police officer.

The victims were identified as Satish Verma, 35, his wife Shashi, 28, and son Archit.
Satish was a software engineer with a private firm in Noida, while Shashi was a housewife. Archit was a student of class I at a private school in south Delhi. The family hailed from Samastipur in Bihar, and had been staying in the two-room residence for the past three years.

Shashi’s mother Premvati said she received a call on Tuesday night that Shashi was sick. “Satish called my son Ravinder to say my daughter was sick. Ravinder and some others reached the house around midnight and knocked on the door, but there was no reply,” Premvati told Deccan Herald.
Some neighbours were apparently disturbed by the loud knocks and emerged from their homes to see who was creating the noise. Aware that they were disturbing the neighbours, the relatives retuned home.
When several calls to the victims on Wednesday morning went unanswered, the relatives decided to pay a visit to see if everything was all right. When knocks on the door proved futile again, they informed police.
On December 21, three persons had been found dead in the servant quarters of a businessman’s house in Hauz Khas.
The police had said the trio had lit coal in the house and died of carbon monoxide poisoning as the room had no ventilation.