×
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

Six of family charred, suicide suspected

Last Updated 24 April 2014, 21:35 IST

A couple in their thirties and their four children, were charred to death in a fire at south-east Delhi in the early hours of Thursday. Their five-year-old son battled for his life the longest before succumbing to his injuries late on Thursday evening.

Despite the recovery of a can of kerosene from the room where the family was burnt to death, the source of the fire remains mysterious. Neighbours of the victims and police sources speculated that it could be a suicide as no apparent calls for help were heard from the room that was bolted from the inside.

The only sound neighbours claimed to have heard at the time of the incident were that of the blaze and faint moans of the husband Feroze Alam, 35. The couple lived with their three sons and a daughter in a rented room in lane number 40 of Zakir Nagar. Feroze ran an embroidery business in the same area.

His neighbours said that except for his wife briefly fainting on Wednesday afternoon, they found nothing unusual in their behaviour during the day.

The 32-year-old Yasmin Alam was apparently disturbed by a tooth problem that had been troubling her for the past few months.

Naim Hasan, a tenant in the same floor of the building as the victims, sensed heat emanating from Feroze’s room at about 1 am on Thursday.

He realised that the room had caught fire and called for the local residents who tried to break open the door to rescue them.

“It took us about 40 minutes to break the door using an axe. Till then we collected water from tanks and poured it after breaking open the window and through the little cracks that had emerged in the door,” said Athar Hasan, the owner of the building.

Among several angles being probed by police is the possibility of the family having been sedated by one of the parents. Murder is not being ruled out, even as police await the post-mortem report.

A policeman present at the spot said they were informed at 1:45 am and no fire tenders were required as the victims had been pulled out by then and the flames doused. They were rushed to Safdarjung Hospital where the mother and her daughter Afrin, 11, were brought dead. The father and their two sons Afroz, 9, and eight-year-old Amir died during treatment. The youngest child Asif was admitted to ICU where he died at about 9 pm.

“The victims had suffered extensive burns,” said Dr Karoon Agrawal, director of the Burns and Plastic Surgery Department.
DH News Service

ADVERTISEMENT
(Published 24 April 2014, 21:35 IST)

Follow us on

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT