NEW DELHI, May 19 (Xinhua) -- As many as 12 people, including five children, died and three others were injured in two separate incidents in India over the past 24 hours, said police sources.

In the first incident, eight people, including a toddler, belonging to two separate families, died when fire broke out inside a factory in India's southwestern state of Maharashtra. Caused by a short circuit, the fire incident was reported from the state's Solapur area early on Sunday.

In a separate incident reported from the country's southern state of Andhra Pradesh on Sunday evening, four children, including two sisters, aged around 8 years, died of suffocation after they accidentally locked themselves inside a parked car.

The kids were playing and accidentally got themselves locked inside the car parked at a lonely place in the state's Vizianagaram area, said the local police. ■