Police said further investigation is on (Representational)
A father, son and two other persons died of suffocation after inhaling some harmful gas in a newly constructed well in Maharashtra's Gondia district on Thursday, police said.
The incident took place at Kanhartola village in Amgaon tehsil around 9 am.
Village resident Atmaram Bhandarkar (62) constructed a new well in his premises and kept a puja ceremony on Thursday morning before starting use of the water body.
To purify the well, he put a mixture of bleaching powder, alum and some other chemicals in its water on Wednesday night.
On Thursday morning, his son entered deep into the well to remove a water motor pump installation and fell unconscious.
Bhandarkar then stepped into the well to save his son, but he also fell unconscious and did not come out, assistant police inspector Rajkumar Dunage said.
Their two neighbours then went into the water body to save them, but they also fell unconscious and died, the police official said.
On being alerted, a police team rushed to the spot and the bodies were later fished out.
It is suspected that the chemicals put in the well generated some harmful gas, which the four victims inhaled and died of suffocation, the police said, adding that further investigation was on.
Besides Atmaram Bhandarkar, the other victims were identified as his son Jhanaklal Atmaram Bhandarkar (36), and neighbours Raju Bhaiyalal Bhandarkar (35) and Dhanraj Laxman Gaidhani (40), he said.
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