A four-year-old boy died, and three members of his family were left fighting for their lives after inhaling toxic fumes from pesticide tablets stored with grain in a rented house in Gwalior's Pinto Park area.
The tragedy unfolded late Sunday night in a three-storey house behind Senapati Garden, under the jurisdiction of the Gola Ka Mandir police station. According to the police, the landlord, Krishna Yadav, had stored nearly 250 quintals of wheat in the building's gallery to protect it from pests. To keep the grain safe, he allegedly placed around 50 sulphas (aluminium phosphide) tablets in the sacks, a chemical known for releasing lethal phosphine gas when exposed to moisture.
The tenants Satyendra Sharma (51), his wife Rajni Sharma, daughter Chhaya (13), and son Vaibhav (4) lived on the ground floor. Around midnight, the family began to feel dizzy and short of breath. By the morning, neighbours found them unconscious. Vaibhav, the youngest, was declared dead on arrival at the hospital, while the parents and daughter remain in critical condition under ventilator support.
Police and the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) team arrived at the scene early Monday morning. Samples of the pesticide and the grain sacks were seized. CSP Robin Jain confirmed, "A team of experts is investigating the cause. Preliminary evidence suggests that sulphas tablets were misused for domestic grain storage, releasing toxic gas that caused the deaths."
The postmortem report confirmed that Vaibhav died of asphyxiation due to phosphine gas. Following the incident, authorities sealed the house and launched an inquiry into how such a dangerous chemical reached a residential area.
Sulphas, a restricted-use fumigant, is banned for open domestic use and can only be supplied to licensed warehouse operators. Yet, according to officials, the landlord purchased the tablets from a private seed store in Gohad, exposing how freely such hazardous substances are being sold in local markets.
