TIRUNELVELI: Two boys and a girl died of suspected suffocation after being trapped inside an abandoned car while playing at Lebbai Kudiyiruppu near Panagudi in Tirunelveli district late on Saturday.
According to police sources, Nithisha (7) and Nithish (5), children of Nagaraj, a daily-wage labourer of Keelatheru at Lebbai Kudiyiruppu, and Kabishanth (4), son of labourer Sudhan, were neighbours.
Police said the three kids went out of their homes to play after lunch on Saturday. Nagaraj’s brother Manikandan had parked the Honda car near the house a few days back. Because of some mechanical error, the rear door of the car can be opened only from the outside, police said. The three children who got into the car got trapped.
Around evening, finding the children missing, the parents started searching for them. A passerby who had seen the children playing near the car told the parents about this. To their utter shock, the parents found all the three kids lying unconscious inside the car. With the help of onlookers, they broke open the car door and took the children to Panagudi government hospital where doctors declared them brought dead.
Superintendent of police P Saravanan said the car has been parked there for three days and the children could have got suffocated due to lack of oxygen and heat, leading to their death. “A case of unnatural death will be registered and Panagudi police will probe the case,” the SP said. Speaker M Appavu visited the hospital and met the parents to express his condolences.