Two school children were crushed to death by a goods train in the Banar area in Jodhpur on Friday when they were running to escape from dogs chasing them, the police said.
Both the children, who were cousins, were returning from school when some pet dogs from a house en route began chasing them.
Frightened, the children began to run.
While running, they mounted the railway tracks, during which a boy and a girl were hit by a goods train and crushed to death barely a few metres away from the Banad Cantt railway station, the police said.
The children's family members refused to accept the bodies as they, along with neighbours, began a protest against the dog owner and demanded immediate capture of the pets by a dog squad, they said.
The police team, which had rushed to the spot on information about the incident, called the dog squad of the Jodhpur Municipal Corporation (South), they added.
After the dog squad captured the pets, the family members accepted the bodies.
The deceased children Ananya Kanwar (9) and Yuvraj Singh (11) were residents of Ganeshpura in Banar area, studying at the Army Children Academy in Classes 5th and 7th respectively, the police said.
The pet dogs were owned by one Omprakash Rathi residing in the area, they said.
The children's mothers are sisters.
Yuvraj's father lives in Karnataka for work, while Ananya's father is an ex-serviceman, they added. -- PTI