Boy dies while re-enacting Saddam hanging

VAIKOM: An eight year-old boy died while trying to imitate the hanging of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before his sister.

Vishnu Sasi met with the tragic end here on Sunday when he was trying to show his five year-old sister how Saddam was hanged, the visuals of which he had seen on television.

Police said the siblings went to the bathroom together and the elder one suddenly had the idea to re-enact the hanging, according to the girl.

Vishnu tied a plastic cord used for hanging clothes around his neck and got it hooked on the wall above the water tank in the bathroom, on which he was standing, the sources said.

The boy was found lying dead a brief while by his mother, who had been engaged in sewing work in another corner of the house, when she went to look for him after the girl came out of her bath.

It was suspected that the boy might have slipped from the tank and the rope broke resulting in him falling down, police said.