ninemsn staff and wires
The deaths of an American boy, a teenage girl in India and a boy in Pakistan have been linked to the television coverage of Saddam Hussein's execution.
Relatives told police in Webster, Texas, that 10-year-old Sergio Pelico had seen the video of the former Iraqi leader's hanging and asked about it before the child hung himself on Sunday.
"We're theorising he tried to experiment or mimic the behaviour and it got out of control," Webster Police Captain Thomas Claunch said.
Police said the boy apparently went to his room, attached a piece of clothing to a bunk bed and tied it around his neck. Adults and other children were in the house at the time.
"There was nothing to indicate any criminal wrongdoing," Claunch said. "It appears to be a tragic accident."
A 15-year-old girl from eastern India also hanged herself, reportedly in response to Saddam's execution.
"She said they had hanged a patriot. We didn't take her seriously when she told us that she wanted to feel the pain Saddam did during the execution," the girl's father, Manmohan Karmakar, told AFP by phone from the town of Kharda.
He said his daughter, called Moon Moon, had become extremely depressed after watching Saddam's execution on television.
"She kept watching the scene over and again and didn't take food on Saturday and Sunday to protest the hanging," he said.
Police superintendent Pravin Kumar confirmed the suicide, saying the girl had strung herself up from a ceiling fan and was found dead early on Wednesday.
The communist-ruled state of West Bengal has condemned Saturday's execution of Saddam, with thousands of people taking to the streets.
ITV reports that nine-year-old Mubashar Ali, from Pakistan, also died in a tragic hanging incident. He was playing with his ten-year-old sister, who tied a rope to a ceiling fan and his neck.
The children had watched the footage of Saddam's execution on TV before the incident, their father said.
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