Ajman: Two infants who died early this week after inhaling pesticide fumes were home alone when their neighbour sprayed their apartment with pesticide, police said yesterday.
Police said the forensic laboratory report said the Arab infants, aged five months, died after inhaling pest control fumes sprayed in an adjacent apartment on Sunday.
According to police, a Palestinian family consisting of a father, mother and 5-month-old triplets inhaled the fumes after the house next to theirs was fumigated. Police said that two babies in the family died.
Police officials who are investigating the case said that the Indian pest control company owner said to police that they informed the neighbours that they intended to fumigate the apartment in question.
Police said the triplets were home alone on Thursday at that time of spraying while the parents were out.
In custody
According to police, the pest control company owner, his staff and the building's watchman are all in police custody.
Police said the case was transferred to the public prosecutor for more investigations.
Police said that the two babies died on Sunday after inhaling fumes from pesticides that were sprayed in a neighbour's apartment.
The owner of the pest control company told police that residents of apartments neighbouring the one that was fumigated had been informed about plans to spray the apartment. He said that the parents of the dead infants had proceeded to leave their children, despite having been forewarned.
The father of the children said that they had noticed a strong odour coming from the apartment adjacent his home in Al Nuaimiya area, Ajman. He added that theywere not aware that they were pesticide fumes.
The father said his triplets fell extremely ill two days after the fumigation.
Two of them died on the way to hospital while the third baby was taken to the intensive care unit at Khalifa Hospital.
Police said the neighbour, whose apartment had been fumigated, had left on the same day as it appeared that the pesticide company had asked him to stay away from his home for two days.
"If it is proven... they will be charged [with] indirectly causing the death of the babies," the official said.
If found guilty, the accused will be required to pay blood money to the parents of the two deceased infants.
