Tribal boys found dead in a wooden box; autopsy report awaited

Highly decomposed bodies of two tribal boys were found in a wooden box in a dilapidated school in a village in East Godavari district, police said.

After some children playing in the abandoned school complained of a foul smell emanating from the box, locals found the bodies of 11-year-old B Prasant Kumar and C Karthik (9) in it two days ago, the police said.

While Prasant belonged to Koya tribe, Karthik belonged to Kammara tribe in Andhra Pradesh, they said, adding that the bodies have been sent to a government hospital for a postmortem.

Preliminary investigation, according to the officials, said the boys might have died out of suffocation after trying in vain to get out of the box which they presumably got into while playing.

"However, we are awaiting a postmortem report to confirm this. This might take some time as the bodies are in a highly decomposed state," a police official B Raja Rao told PTI.

A complaint of the boys going missing was registered by their parents on May 26, the officials said.