Elderly woman & her daughter charred to death in Parnashree
Kolkata: In a horrific incident a 68-year-old woman and her 44-year-old daughter were charred to death when a fire broke out at a two storeyed house at Parnashree in south Kolkata on Saturday afternoon.
Police said the victims Soma Mitra and her daughter Kakoli were on the first floor of the house when the fire broke out. The origin of the fire was on the first floor itself.
Fire fighters suspect electric short circuits as the cause of the fire. They are also not rulling out the possibility of an explosion of some electronics gadget in the house due to the short circuit.
According to a firefighter, local people heard a heavy sound of explosion and subsequently found heavy smoke billowing out of the windows in the first floor of the building.
They informed the state Fire and Emergency Services department. Firefighters rushed to the spot and initiated the work to douse the flames. They restricted the fire from spreading to other parts of the house and initiated all efforts along with the personnel of Disaster Management Group (DMG) to rescue the women.
Three other– Hirak Ghosh, Chobi Ghosh and Mousumi Ghosh – reside in the ground floor of the house. They remained unhurt as they had managed to come out of the house soon after the fire broke out. But, despite all efforts Soma and her daughter failed to come out.
Even local people could not enter the house to save them despite hearing their cry for help as the flames had engulfed the major portion of the first floor of the house and it was threatening to spread further. Finally, the fire fighters entered the room, where the duo was stuck, after a fight of more than an hour to find them lying unconscious with severe burn injuries on their bodies.
They were declared brought dead when taken to hospital. The bodies were sent for an autopsy.
A probe has been initiated to ascertain the exact cause of the fire that claimed two lives. Police initially thought that cooking gas cylinders had exploded, but the same were found unaffected. So they are considering that some electronic gadgets might have exploded.
