Kolkata:
In a freak accident, a Class V girl student choked to death apparently trying to imitate a suicide scene shown in a television programme, police said on Tuesday.
"Barnali Thakurta was playing with her three-year-old brother when, apparently in a bid to show her brother how people commit suicide by hanging, she choked to death when the scarf she was using for hanging herself, got entangled in the fan accidentally," Deputy Commissioner (south west division) Subrata Mitra told reporters.
The body has been sent for postmortem, Mitra added.
Hearing the groans of the girl, her mother who was working in the next room came rushing only to find her daughter hanging and gradually suffocating. The mother's screams alarmed the neighbours who quickly brought her down and took her to a nearby hospital where she succumbed.
Thakurta was addicted to daily soaps on TV and would often enact certain scenes after watching them.
"She was very interested in TV serials and would often imitate certain scenes. We never thought this habit of her would turn out fatal. We are deeply shocked and grieved by the incident," Asit Thakurta, her uncle said.
The incident is not an isolated one. There are many instances of children getting killed while attempting stunts shown in movies or TV.
In 2009, 12-year-old Vishal Hela, strangled himself to death at his residence at Shibpur in Howrah town when he tied himself with a rope apparently trying to copy a stunt on TV.
Worried over recurring deaths of children trying to imitate stunts by popular cartoon heroes, the Trinamool Congress way back in 2003 had demanded a ban on telecast of such television programmes including superhero shows like Shaktiman, Superman and Spiderman.