Sundargarh: In a shocking incident, four persons who were attending a wedding suffocated to death after the room they were sleeping in was filled with smoke emanating from a generator at Dhotidhipa village under Balishankara block of the district late Sunday night.
The deceased were Kankuran Pradhan of Dhotidhipa, Parameshwar Dandasena of Simdega, Suresh Pradhan of Dildega and Mato of Tumulia in Chhattisgarh.
Two others, Dushmant Pradhan and Baishakhu, are battling for life at the district headquarters hospital here.
The relatives had all assembled for the wedding of Kankuran’s son Sunil, and were sleeping in his house at Dhotidhipa village Sunday night after the function was over in the day. Sunil’s marriage was solemnised at Semana village under Sadar block of the district Monday. The family members and relatives returned to the house with the newly-weds in the evening.
As there was no power connection to the village, a generator was arranged for the marriage function.
Six persons including Kankuran were sleeping inside a room where the generator was functioning.
In the early hours of Monday, as they did not wake up, the family members broke open the door and rushed the people to a hospital at Balishankara. Later, they were shifted to the district headquarters hospital in a critical condition. However, four persons breathed their last en route.
Talsara police recovered the bodies and sent them for post-mortem. An unnatural death case was registered and investigations were on.
Kankuran’s wife Ambika, who was the first to wake up, knocked on the door to wake her husband. Sources said she went into shock upon seeing her husband and other relatives lying dead inside the room.
Kankuran’s niece Saiberni Dansena said as the fuel in the generator got exhausted at around 1 am, the fans stopped working and all the guests woke up due to extremely high humidity. The generator was restarted after kerosene was poured into it. Later, all the people went back to sleep. Saiberni said they never expected that the festive mood would end in such a tragic manner by the next morning. PNN
