Since the room was closed, it filled with smoke as the chickpeas continued cooking on the stove. Both the men allegedly died of asphyxiation due to the poisonous smoke.
In an extraordinary and sad episode, two 20-year-old youngsters allegedly succumbed to asphyxiation/suffocation here in Uttar Pradesh’s Noida on Saturday. Smoke, along with the dangerous fumes emerging from a chickpeas-containing pot left in a stove and set alight, is the cited reason behind asphyxiation.
The deceased, identified as Upendra (22) and Shivam (23), used to live in a rented house in Basai village in Noida’s Sector 70. They had a stall where they sold ‘chole bhature’ and ‘kulcha,’ NDTV reported.
As the initial probe revealed, both men had kept a pot of chickpeas (chole) on a burning stove overnight to cook for their stall. On Friday night, they put the pot on the stove, went to sleep, and left it on.
Being locked in the room, it quickly filled with smoke as chickpeas continued to cook over the stove, and both of the men presumably died from inhaling the noxious smoke.
Because the house door was closed, oxygen was scarce in the room. This, combined with the smoke from the charred food, resulted in a large amount of carbon monoxide in the house, Assistant Commissioner of Police Rajiv Gupta, Noida Central Zone, told the news outlet.
When the neighbors smelled the smoke, they broke open the door and rushed both the men to a local hospital, where they were declared dead on arrival by doctors, the report added.
Police have sent their bodies for post-mortem. The smoke in an enclosed area can lead to respiratory issues and asphyxiation and gives off injurious gases like carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.
