Two men die after a reported chemical smell in a Mumbai public toilet

Two men died after they were allegedly exposed to a strong chemical smell inside a public toilet in Mumbai, officials said, according to The Indian Express. The men were Prabhakar Dhanivar, 24, and Bhavin Desai, 18. Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation officials told the paper the toilet is near Parsi Panchayat Gate, close to Mrunaltai Bridge, in Ram Mandir (East), Goregaon East. ABP Majha also named both men, with the same ages, and placed the toilet at the Parsi Panchayat gate by the Mrunaltai Gore flyover in Ram Mandir (East), in the western suburbs.

The Indian Express said both were taken to Trauma Care Hospital around midnight and declared dead at 3:49 am, according to doctors there. ABP Majha said they were taken around midnight to the trauma care hospital in Jogeshwari, and that doctors declared both dead at 3:49 am. The Marathi report said they had died before treatment began. The English report did not use that phrase. It said they were declared dead at that time.

Vanrai police registered an accidental death report and were waiting for the post-mortem to establish the cause, The Indian Express reported. The paper said locals alerted the authorities after noticing a strong chemical odour from the toilet and reported that two people had suffered suffocation.

No chemical is named in either report. The cause, as officials and the police described it, is gas, suffocation, or a chemical smell, and the accounts are not identical. A police officer told The Indian Express: "Prima facie, it looks like gas emitted by a small-scale industrial unit near the toilet might have come in contact with the two individuals." That is a preliminary police view, not a completed finding. ABP Majha said a poisonous chemical smell spread in the toilet, that the two young men suffocated, and that it was not yet known how the gas spread or what produced it. It said police were investigating. This report does not choose between "chemical smell," "suffocation" and "gas from a nearby unit," and it does not supply a chemical name the sources do not give.

The day is also reported differently. The Indian Express said the deaths followed exposure in the early hours of Sunday. ABP Majha said the poisonous chemical smell spread on Thursday night. Both outlets then described a declaration of death at 3:49 am. This report keeps both timings and does not merge them into one.

The Indian Express quoted Prabhat Dhanivar, brother of Prabhakar Dhanivar. He said they found both men unconscious in the bathroom, their lips turned black, with foam coming from their mouths. The paper said the families had demanded strict action over the deaths.

BMC officials told The Indian Express the incident was reported to the authorities at about 8:30 am. After that, the paper said, teams from the fire brigade, police, the 108 ambulance service, the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board and the BMC ward staff were sent to the spot. Officials were expected to examine the toilet and try to find the source of the smell. The paper said a detailed inquiry was likely to establish the sequence and the cause of death.

ABP Majha said local residents started help as soon as they heard, and that police were still investigating how a poisonous gas had spread in the public toilet. It did not name a factory or a chemical.

What's next

The post-mortem result had not been reported. Vanrai police were waiting on it for the cause of death. The Indian Express said officials were still to examine the toilet and that an inquiry was expected to fix the sequence of events. Until that inquiry and the post-mortem are out, the gas link remains what the police called a prima facie view.