RAWALPINDI: A seven-month-old boy was burnt alive in a fire in Rawat on Tuesday.

The fire erupted apparently after the elder sister of the infant struck a matchstick on his bed in their house at Moragor locality of Rawat.

This was the second tragic incident in the area within about two months as earlier a four-year-old boy went missing and was found dead in a pond.

Mohammad Hasnain, a former UC member, told Dawn that the fire incident occurred in the house of Zubair Mehmood after his wife left for bringing green grocery from her uncle’s house leaving her three-year-old daughter Aiyaza and seven-month-old son Moeen at home.

Since male members of the house and in the neighbourhood had gone to their workplaces, no one could notice the fire inside the house till the mother returned and found her bedroom gutted and her loved one burnt alive. Mr Hasnain said the girl survived as she left the room after the fire erupted.

“The bed on which the infant was lying was gutted,” he said, adding: “It was a big tragedy.” After the incident, a large number of people from the surrounding areas reached the house and mourned the death of the infant.

Meanwhile, a young man, who was sitting on a railway track, was hit and killed by a train at Ratta Amral on Tuesday.

According to emergency services, the youth tried to cross the track on hearing the sound of the train’s horn but could not do so and was hit and killed. The body of the victim was shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital for a postmortem.

Published in Dawn, January 29th, 2025