Two men in their 20s left a pot of chickpeas on a burning stove to cook overnight for their ‘chhole bhature‘ stall the next morning. A few hours later, however, both of them were found dead by their neighbours.
Upendra (22) and Shivam (23) lived in a rented house in Basai village in Noida’s Sector 70. They had a stall where they used to send ‘chole bhature‘ and ‘kulche‘.
As per the initial investigation, after placing the pot on the stove on Friday night, they went to sleep, leaving the gas on.
The room got filled with smoke as the ‘chhole‘ (chickpeas) continued to cook on the stove, said Assistant Commissioner of Police Rajiv Gupta, Noida Central Zone.
“Since the door of the house was shut, it led to a shortage of oxygen in the room. This combined with the smoke from the burning food resulted in a large amount of carbon monoxide in the house,” Mr Gupta said.
The men allegedly died of suffocation due to the poisonous smoke, he added.
When the neighbours noticed the smoke a few hours later, they broke the door of the house and rushed them to a nearby hospital. They were declared dead on arrival by doctors at the district hospital in Noida Sector 39. There were no injury marks on their bodies. Police have sent their bodies for post-mortem.
Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas that is odourless. It can be emitted while burning fuel in cars or trucks, stoves, ovens, grills and generators and can build up in tightly sealed or closed spaces.