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Dead couple's friend may be charged with negligence

Swapna Khanna in New Delhi

Twenty-two-year-old Rachna Anand was supposed to go and give prasad [divine offerings] to her friend Richa on Thursday evening. Instead she was found dead with 27-year-old Chander Sharma in his Maruti car in a garage at Mansarovar Park, northeast Delhi.

The two were discovered by their friend Navneet Bhalla (23). Bhalla had been told by Sharma to lock them in the garage and reopen it after about two hours.

"Navneet Bhalla, who discovered the bodies of Chander and Rachna around 9pm, may be booked for negligence [under section] 304-A [of the] IPC [Indian Penal Code]," said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Northeast) S K Gautam.

He said, "The incident occurred between 7.15 and 9.30pm on Thursday night, but Bhalla informed Harish, Chander's elder brother, only around 11pm. They then informed the police who arrived around 11.30pm.

The police took Rachna and Chander to the Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital where they were declared dead.

Bhalla, who has a factory of tractor spare parts in Gokulpuri, northeast Delhi, knew Sharma and Anand for the last four years.

According to the police, the couple had asked Bhalla to pull down the shutter of the garage and return after two hours. When Bhalla returned, he found them dead. The police suspect asphyxiation to be the cause of death.

Explaining the process of asphyxiation, a forensic expert from a government hospital said carbon monoxide binds with the haemoglobin in the blood, whose function is to carry oxygen to various parts of the body, replacing oxygen.

Carbon monoxide, which has 300 times the capacity of oxygen to bind with haemoglobin, can kill "in no time".

A forensic expert from the Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital, where the autopsies were performed, also said that, theoretically, carbon monoxide asphyxiation seems to be the most likely explanation, but only the autopsy could confirm it.

According to the girl's mother Krishna Anand, who said she saw the bodies before they were sent for post-mortem, Rachna's face was swollen.

Chander alias Romi's family remain tightlipped about what must have happened. "Why would he tell anybody, especially if he was going with wine and things like that?" said Harish Sharma.

According to Satish Tarar, owner of a store selling electrical goods adjacent to the garage, "The two must have slipped into the garage when I was out for about 20 minutes at around 7pm."

Tarar said he had kept the shop open till 2100 IST, but had not heard anything. He was disturbed from his sleep around midnight when he heard a commotion and saw the police at the spot.

The police have not been able to tell the exact time of death. That too will be known only when the autopsy report comes in.

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