Three men died Thursday while cleaning a pond in a village in Chhattisgarh's Bilaspur district after inhaling a poisonous gas, an official statement said.

The incident took place at village Manor in Marwahi area of the district, some 200 km from Raipur.

'Three people - Amar Singh, 40, Bhubneshwar, 40, and Dev Singh, 50 - died due to a mysterious poisonous gas leak when they went inside a pond for cleaning it up,' the statement said.