Days after two men died allegedly after inhaling toxic fumes at a Goregaon public toilet, the preliminary investigation has shown that it was only a few minutes before that two persons, currently absconding, had dumped the waste into the public toilet. Moments later, two locals entered the toilet and never came out.

According to the preliminary investigation, police suspect that hydrochloric and sulfuric acids generated from the waste likely produced toxic fumes inside a public toilet in Goregaon, killing the two. They have been identified as Prabhakar Dhivar, 24, and Bhavik Desai, 18.

Police are awaiting the final forensic analysis report, an officer said.

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The Vanrai Police have booked four persons, including landlord Navinchandra Chawla, his tenant and electroplating-unit operator Ramdhani Yadav, and Yadav’s two employees, on charges relating to culpable homicide not amounting to murder and other relevant provisions. Navinchandra Chawla has been arrested.

Police said Ramdhani Yadav left for his native place in Uttar Pradesh about a week before the incident, leaving the business with his employees. They are currently on the run, and a police team has gone to Uttar Pradesh to trace them.

Yadav has been running an electroplating business in a 200 sq ft unit. Police said they used hydrochloric and sulfuric acids, after mixing them with caustic soda for plating.

According to preliminary police findings, workers at the unit allegedly discharged chemical waste into the toilet shortly before the victims entered it in the early hours of Sunday.

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An officer involved in the investigation said it is suspected that the workers had done this on a routine basis, believing the public toilet remained unused.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Fire Brigade and Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) inspected the public toilet site after police alerted them about the deaths.

Preliminary findings by the civic and pollution-control authorities indicated that fumes may have been released after harmful chemicals were discharged into the toilet, police said.

The victims went to the public toilet near Parsi Panchayat Gate and Mrunaltai Bridge in Ram Mandir East at around 2.30 am on Sunday. When the two did not return, their friends started searching for them and found Dhivar unconscious in one cubicle. They took him to Jogeshwari Trauma Care Hospital.

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Desai was found unconscious in an adjacent cubicle after his friends forced its door open. Doctors declared both men dead before admission.

A case was registered based on a statement by Desai’s father, who alleged that chemical waste from the nearby electroplating business entered the drainage system and produced poisonous fumes in the toilet.

He also accused the property owner and people associated with the business of failing to take adequate precautions, according to the FIR.

The police are awaiting the Forensic Science Laboratory’s analysis of samples collected from the site. Police said around 35 litres of chemicals were recovered from Yadav’s unit, and a sample was collected and sent for testing.

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The victims’ viscera samples have also been sent to the FSL. The final cause of death remains undetermined pending the final post-mortem and forensic reports, an officer said.