Three children died of suffocation in a car on Thursday after getting trapped inside, in a village in Krishna district in Andhra Pradesh, police said. All three girls were aged between six and eight years, and they were identified as Apsana, Yasmin and Parveen.
The girls were found dead inside the car by their parents, police said. The incident occurred at Remalle village in Bapulapadu mandal.
The children were from families of migrant workers from other states, according to Times of India (ToI). Parents of two of the children are from Assam, and one child’s family is from West Bengal.
According to PTI, Circle Inspector D V Ramana said the doors of the car apparently got locked automatically, and the girls were suffocated to death in the incident that occurred at workers' quarters in the village.
Police told The New Indian Express that the incident is likely to have occurred around 2 30 pm on Thursday, when the children were playing outdoors. They entered a car parked outside their residential quarters and seemed to have got locked in accidentally, police said, adding that there were signs of the children trying to open the door.
According to ToI, the parents found the children lying unconscious in the car after an hour of searching, and rushed them to the hospital where they were declared brought dead. Police said that the owner of the car had not closed the door on the passenger side.
A case of unnatural death has been registered and further investigation is on.
In a similar incident in Vizag in May 2019, a seven-year-old boy died after getting accidentally locked in a car, at the Amzari Park Naval Officers Quarters.
The child’s father was employed as a domestic worker at a naval officer’s house, and the family was residing in the same quarters. Police said that the child had entered the car, which had been left unlocked, wanting to play with some toys inside the vehicle. The car doors got automatically locked and the windows had been rolled up, resulting in the boy suffocating to death.
PTI Inputs