'Please don't switch on lights': Man dies after inhaling toxic gas, leaves warning note for cops
The deceased had sealed the windows of the house, assisted by a carpenter, to prevent the gas from escaping accidentally.
An email dropped into the Mumbai police commissioner’s official address from a Bengaluru-based woman on Tuesday, urging an investigation into her brother’s whereabouts, as the family had last heard from him on Saturday, and attempts made to communicate with him thereafter had been in vain.
The Mumbai Crime Branch’s probe tracked his mobile location to Kaman, in Vasai, following which Naigaon police took over the case.
When police reached the spot on Wednesday – an old bungalow located amid industrial warehouses in Kaman – they faced an out-of-the-ordinary scene.
On the entrance door of the bungalow was a note pasted with a warning that read, “Carbon monoxide inside; don’t switch on the lights”, with foul odour emanating from within. Cops immediately called the fire brigade for assistance.
Inside, they found a 27-year-old man who had died after allegedly inhaling from a poisonous gas cylinder. Police believe he had died by suicide as he was found wearing an inhalation mask attached to a cylinder of carbon monoxide, and a suicide note taped on a wall by his bed.
They have registered a case of accidental death, while investigations are on to find out where he managed to procure the gas cylinders from.
Carbon monoxide (CO) is a colourless and odourless poisonous gas which is used in chemical and metals industry.
The deceased had sealed the windows of the house, assisted by a carpenter, to prevent the gas from escaping accidentally. Locals in the neighbourhood told police that the man had been residing in the bungalow in Vasai for a year. It eventually came to light that he earlier lived in Powai and worked in a bank in the suburb.
On the bedroom door, the deceased had pasted a second note of warning that read: “Carbon monoxide inside. Please don’t switch on lights. Call police.” To protect themselves from the deadly gas, the fire brigade personnel, wearing PPE kits and breathing apparatus sets, broke into the bedroom aided with a hydraulic spreader cutter.
Officers found the deceased wearing a mask attached to the cylinder inhaling from it directly. The cylinders were arranged methodically – he had tied two cylinders to both his hands and put on a helmet. A tube was connected to the gas cylinder and held in his mouth through a nebulizer used for breathing. Through it, the poisonous noxious gas was drawn into his body. The fire brigade officers carefully cut the tube in his mouth with a knife and separated it from the cylinder. His body has been sent for autopsy.
An investigating officer said: “He took precautions to ensure that no one was harmed. He had written clear instructions on how to enter the bedroom, and had shut the windows with wooden planks.”
Assistant police inspector Balaram Palkar, of Naigaon PS, said in the suicide note, he had thanked his “family for their support” and but “took the decision to end his life as he was suffering from physical and mental health problems since the last year-and-a-half, for which there was no cure, and was keeping him from working and leading a good life”. Five cylinders of the gas were found in his house.
Rohit Vishwakarma, the carpenter who was purportedly hired by the deceased to seal the house, told police he was asked to do so two days ago. The police have recorded his statement.
