Hyderabad: Four men, aged between 22 and 28 years, were found dead under suspicious circumstances in a room located beside a poultry farm at Bommarasipeta in Shamirpet, about 33 km from Hyderabad. Police say, prima facie, it appears to be a case of asphyxiation from smoke.
The victims were identified as Pothireddy Mahendar Reddy, 28, Gadagani Aravind, 24, Mogulla Sathish, 22, and Chinnaboina Mahesh, 22, natives of Venkatapuram in Thorrur mandal of Mahabubabad district.
According to the Shamirpet police, Aravind and a friend, Bhupathi Kranthi, had taken a poultry farm belonging to one Dasar Sudhakar Reddy of Babaguda on rent and were running it, with help from KGL Seeds. Aravind had hired M. Sathish and Mahesh from his village to help him.
They had 14,000 chicken, for which the seeds company assigned a supervisor, G. Sathish, to check the health of the birds daily. At 10 pm on Thursday, Aravind, M. Sathish, Mahesh and Kranthi began vaccinating chickens and worked till 1 am on Friday. Mahendar, a friend of Aravind, had come to assist them. After that, Kranthi left.
Supervisor G. Sathish reached the farm at about 11 am on Friday but did not see Aravind and his team. When he went to the room, he found it filled with smoke and four persons lying motionless.
“When I entered the room, I could only see thick smoke. Aravind, M. Sathish, Mahesh and Mahendar were lying there and two of them were frothing from the mouth and two were bleeding from the nose and mouth. I called Kranthi and we found that they were dead and alerted the police.” said G. Sathish.
He said that everything was fine when he and Kranthi left the farm. After vaccinating the chickens, the four persons ate food and reportedly consumed liquor, and lit a bonfire inside the room. Shamirpet inspector B. Naveen Reddy said, “The deceased do not have external injuries. The clues team has collected include an iron box which was used for the bonfire, an empty alcohol bottle, and some identification cards. Prima facie, it is suspected that they would have died of asphyxiation due to the smoke from the bonfire.”
The inspector said that a case of suspicious death has been registered and investigation has begun.
