SIALKOT: A woman and her two minor sons were found burnt under mysterious circumstances in a room of her in-laws’ house at Koobey Chak on Tuesday.

According to police and Rescue 1122 sources, the bodies of Saleema Bibi, 30, and her two minor sons -- two-year-old Sufyan and three-month-old Zeeshan -- were lying fully burnt on a single bed in a room of the house.

Locals say that Saleema Bibi’s husband worked abroad, while she, along with her two minor sons, lived with her in-laws.

Saleema’s in-laws claimed that the fire erupted in the room because of a short circuit, while they were in other rooms of the same house.

According to police, the circumstantial evidences raise many questions about authenticity of the claim of the deceased woman’s in-laws.

A police official who inspected the scene said on the condition of anonymity that all the three bodies were lying on a single bed which made the whole account of the woman’s in-laws dubious.

He said how it was possible that the mother made no effort to save herself and her minor children from fire and did not move from the bed even in face of impending death.

That the fire only gutted the bed on which the mother and the children were lying, without burning any other article in the room, also makes the whole incident suspicious, police say.

“What sort fire it was that only burnt a bed and nothing else,” the police official asked.

Rescue 1122 firefighters who responded to the emergency call, said it took them 18 minutes to arrived at the scene. They said the fire had already been extinguished when they arrived there.

The police collected evidence from the scene and moved the bodies to district headquarters hospital for autopsies.

Published in Dawn January 25th, 2017