QUETTA: Three students of a religious seminary died of suffocation in the Kuchlak area, nearly 25km from the provincial capital, on Monday.

According to the police, the incident took place in the Khairkhawa religious seminary located in the Yakh Karez area of Kuchlak where three young students went to sleep in their hostel room without turning off the gas heater as it was cold. They had also put a container on the heater to boil water.

“The water boiled over container and fell on the heater late at night producing a lot of smoke in the room which eventually suffocated the boys,” the police explained.

Police rushed to the religious seminary after receiving information about the incident and took the bodies to Civil Hospital Quetta where doctors confirmed that they were dead.

The deceased were identified as Hafiz Nizamuddin, Hafiz Muhammad Yaqoob and Jilani. The bodies were handed over to the families after the autopsy and medico-legal formalities were completed.

This is the fourth gas related incident in the last two weeks and so far ten deaths have been reported in and around Quetta while seven people were also injured in an explosion caused by a gas leak in Quetta and Mastung.

According to Sui Southern Gas Company’s senior official Madni Siddique, these incidents took place despite an awareness campaign being run by the company in Quetta. “I urge people to turn off their gas heaters before going to bed,” he said.

Published in Dawn, December 12th, 2017