An eight-year-old Indian boy has died trying to show his sister how ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was hanged, police in the southern state of Kerala said on Tuesday.
Vishnu Sashi fell from a bathroom water tank after tying a plastic cord round his neck on Sunday evening in Vaikom town, said inspector Rajesh Menon.
Vishnu decided to show his five-year-old sister Sitalakshmi what he had seen on television about how the former president was put to death.
”While enacting the drama, Vishnu tied a plastic rope around his neck and hooked it on the wall,” neighbour Damodaran Bharathan told Agence France-Presse by telephone from the temple town, 240km north of the Kerala state capital Thiruvananthapuram, formerly called Trivandrum.
”He slipped from the top of the water tank and died on the spot.
”His sister ran away when he tied the rope around his neck. When she returned to the spot, she found her brother hanging on the wall.”
”We are shocked. He was a sweet boy,” Bharathan said.
Saddam’s execution on December 30 in Baghdad was beamed around the world on primetime television news programmes.
At least 10 children around the world have been reported to have died in tragic reenactments of the hanging. ‒ Sapa-AFP