ISLAMABAD: Three children were burnt alive while their parents along with a sibling injured when a fire broke out in their house early on Monday, police said.
The incident took place in the house of Ansar Iqbal located at Muslim Colony near the Bari Imam shrine.
The police quoted the father of Iqbal as saying that his son and daughter-in-law woke up at Fajr and due to the power suspension lit a candle and sprinkled kerosene on firewood to prepare the breakfast.
It may be mentioned that there is no gas supply in the area and people use either firewood or gas cylinder to prepare meals.
The police said all of a sudden the fire broke out in the house. The couple tried to extinguish the flames with water but to no avail.
The couple’s four children who were sleeping in a room trapped in the flames and were burnt. In their attempts to rescue the children, the couple also sustained injuries.
Later, the neighbours along with rescue teams shifted the injured to hospital where doctors pronounced Usama, 18 months, Noor, four years, and Rambel, eight years, dead. Ansar, his wife and a daughter, Haleema, were kept in the burn unit of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims).
According to Pims spokesman Dr Waseem Khawaja, the conditions of the three injured were critical. They received 40 to 50 per cent burns, he added.
Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2015
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