A man died on Wednesday after accidentally electrocuting himself when he stepped on a live wire meant to kill rats on his Kandal farm. Koh Thom district police chief Chhoeun Bunchhorn said the victim, Kho Sokhen, 28, was killed by his own negligence after stepping on the homemade rat trap he had installed to protect his crops from the vermin. The wire was connected to a battery charger. “Our authorities have often educated people to not use electric devices to trap rats on their plantations,” he said.

But the victim’s father, Pen Sakhon, defended the necessity of installing the trap, saying rats had routinely destroyed many crops, especially their bean plants. He added that they had taken what they considered appropriate precautions.

“The electric wire is only connected to the battery charger at nighttime. During the day, we remove it,” he said. Sakhon said he went to look for his son in the field when he didn’t come home at the usual time, and found him lying down on the wire, already dead.