Four children met with a tragic end in a freak incident at Kulathur, a small town in Thoothukudi district in southern Tamil Nadu, when a Hyundai Accent car seized by the Kulathur branch of a nationalised bank turned out to be a death trap for them. All the four children were aged between four and ten years.
While playing on Tuesday evening, Isakki Ammal (10), Aaji (4), Muthalagi (10) and Moses (4) entered the car and got locked inside the car accidentally. They were found dead in the car on Wednesday around 9 am, according to Shankar, Special Branch inspector, Kulathur.
Speaking to The Pioneer over telephone from Kulathur, Shankar said the children’s parents started searching for them late on Tuesday evening when the kids did not return home.
“But they did not search near the car parked close to the temple. The car in which the children had got trapped have been dumped there for the last three years after it was seized by a nationalised bank following the default on loan payment. It seems something was wrong with the central locking system of the car,” said Shankar.
He said there are possibilities that the trapped children might have started panicking and lost their senses out of fear that they could not open the door or due to lack of oxygen.
“It was the strangest place for the children to get trapped as the chances of anyone going near such vehicles are dim. The parents were searching for the children in nearby areas when somebody peeped into the vehicle to find them lying unconscious. It is suspected that they have been trapped inside the car for more than 13 hours,” said the inspector.