1 week Ago By Sindhu Kannan
CHENNAI: A one-year-old boy and his six-year-old sister died and their parents are battling for life after inhaling toxic fumes that permeated their bedroom after pest control treatment at their apartment on Wednesday. Police said bank employee Giridharan, 34, had engaged Unique Pest Control to tackle rat menace at his apartment in Devendran Nagar near Kundrathur. On Wednesday evening, the firm carried out chemcial treatment of the premises.
At night, the family switched the A/C on and went to sleep. Some time in the night, Giridharan woke up finding it difficult to breathe and noticed his children, San Sudarshan and Vishalini, and wife Pavithra, 31, were unconscious. He called up a friend and asked for help.
Friends rushed to the apartment and shifted all four to a private hospital nearby, where doctors declared the children dead. The couple were shifted to the intensive care unit at Sri Ramachandra Medical Centre in Porur for treatment. Their condition is stable, doctors said.
The couple do not know their children are no more. A senior doctor said, “Parents are not aware of their children’s deaths. They will be informed only after their relatives come to Chennai from their native Kumbakonam.
” “There seems to have been an overdose of chemicals, which has caused a toxic effect in the closed air-conditioned r oom. Children are v ulnerable as their lungs aren’t fully developed,” he added. Police said Dinakaran, an employee of Unique Pest Control, T Nagar, has been arrested on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
They have launched a hunt for the firm’s owner, Prem Ku mar. Police suspect the pest control firm representatives used more than the usual dosage..
