Woman, two daughters burnt alive as house catches fire
KARNAL: A 28-year-old woman and her two daughters were burnt alive as a house caught fire in Ram Nagar area of Karnal on Thursday.
The deceased have been identified as Puja,her daughters Pari, 5, and Suhana, 7.
Puja’s husband Raj Kumar is a sanitation worker in the Karnal municipal corporation (MC).
Police said the victims were inside the house constructed on the first floor of a small furniture unit in the congested residential area when it caught fire.
Eyewitnesses said the fire spread to both the floors of the building and Puja, who was inside the house with her daughters, had shut the door of their house to escape the fire. However, when the flames engulfed the entire building, they were not able to come out, leading to their death. The police said two fire tenders were used to extinguish the fire, with the help of locals.
The three victims were later rushed to the Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College and Hospital where they were declared brought dead.
One Kuldeep Singh, who was also living with his family in another room at the same floor, managed to escape. The police said that reason behind the fire could not be ascertained yet but after the preliminary investigations, it was suspected that the fire broke due to short circuit.
Karnal city police station in-charge Mohan Lal said the police have registered a case against Rakesh Kumar, who runs the furniture unit, and Virbhan Singh, owner of the building, under Section 304 A of the IPC on the complaint of Raj Kumar. But no arrest has been made so far as the as the investigations are on, he added.
The family of the deceased initially refused to give permission for postmortem of bodies, demanding action against the owners of the building. However, they relented after the police gave them assurance of a fair probe.