Three-year-old twin boys died after falling into a washing machine at their home in outer Delhi’s Rohini locality yesterday. The horrific accident occurred when their mother Rakhi had stepped out to buy detergent and other household items, setting up the machine, filling it with water for laundry. When she returned, approximately “six minutes later”, she could not spot the children, who were playing in the house, in Avantika Apartments in Sector 1 and informed her husband Ravinder. Failing to locate the children after frantically searching in and around the house for about 20 minutes, a neighbour made a PCR call and registered a missing complaint.

In the meantime, Ravinder looked inside the washing machine and found the two kids floating there. “We heard a loud scream from inside the house. When we rushed inside, we saw that the two kids lying unconscious inside the washing machine. Their father immediately pulled them out and rushed to the hospital. But the boys could not be saved,” a neighbour said.

The Police said the two boys apparently died of drowning since there was over 15 litres of water inside the machine. “The mother of the boys had kept piles of clothes on the ground near the machine for washing. It appears that one of the kids first climbed the heap to see what was inside the machine and fell inside head on. The second child must have followed his brother. Since both of them fell head on, they were chocked. There was no way they could have come out,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police M.N. Tiwari.