Two boys, aged four and five, died of suffocation after being trapped in a car for close to seven hours in the hot afternoon sun in outer Delhi’s Ranhola.
The minors, who were cousins by relation, were accidentally locked inside the car owned by the father of one of the victims on Tuesday.
The boys allegedly got locked inside the car around noon. They had been playing outside their house in Baprola village when the four-year-old’s father, a driver with one of the cab aggregators, came home and parked his car nearby.
The man went up to the second floor of the house. Meanwhile, the children got inside the car to play.
Frantic search
The father, however, realised that he hadn’t lock the cab and used the central locking system from a distance, without realising that the children were inside.
Two hours later, the family realised that the children were nowhere to be seen and started a frantic search.
Nearly six hours on, the family approached the police. “The parents of both the children approached Ranhola police station to file a missing report. We asked them to get pictures of the kids and registered a case under Section 363 (punishment for kidnapping) of the Indian Penal Code,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer) Pankaj Kumar Singh.
The parents returned home and the police started looking for the minors. The bodies of the boys were discovered just a short while later by other family members.
“The children had died by then. It was unfortunate that the family didn’t approach us earlier,” said Mr. Singh.
“The bodies were immediately sent for post mortem and handed over to the family on Wednesday for last rites. The cause of death was suffocation as they were in the car for hours and it was extremely hot outside,” said the DCP, adding that the family regret their negligence.
In June this year, a six-year-old met a similar fate when he accidentally got locked inside a sedan in Rani Bagh.
His body was discovered four hours later in the car, which was parked right outside the house.
