Enclosed in car,poisonous fumes kill engineer

Dinesh Bansal,a junior engineer with TDI City,was declared dead on arrival at a local hospital; the woman (name withheld to protect identity) was discharged after treatment. Her family has shifted her to an undisclosed location,an officer said.

According to police,the victim’s father,Rajinder Bansal,found the duo in the car inside the family’s garage at 11.45 pm on Thursday. “We got a call (from Bansal senior) around 11.50 pm,” an officer said. “He said he was rushing both of them to the hospital.”

The woman is a first-year student of BA in Delhi University. According to the police,the two knew each other for the past couple of years. The families,the police said,lived in the same locality — Swatantra Nagar in Narela — before the Bansals shifted to Punjabi Basti.

On Thursday,Bansal reportedly picked up the woman from her home in his car (a Hyundai Santro) and drove to the garage of his house. This was around 9.30 pm,the police said.

“He rolled down the garage shutters and the two were in the car with the AC switched on,” a senior officer said.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer district) Atul Katiyar said the death was caused due to poisonous fumes in the car.

Rajinder Bansal has told the police that after waiting for Dinesh till 11.30 pm he went down to the garage to see whether his son had returned.

Instead,he found his body — half hanging out of the car.

An officer said the woman’s family members,who knew of the duo’s friendship,arrived at the Bansal residence looking for her and then went to Raja Harishchandra Hospital,where the two had been taken. The woman,who regained consciousness during treatment,has told the police that she had gone with Bansal by her “own will” and that they were friends.

“We were in the car… suddenly we started feeling dizzy and nauseous,” she said in her statement to the police. “We started coughing — Bansal opened the car’s door to get outside but suddenly collapsed. After that,I blacked out.”