By IANS,
Bhopal : Four children of a family were burnt to death and one was injured in Chandrapur village of Singrauli district of Madhya Pradesh, police said Sunday.
Though Singrauli, where the incident occurred Friday-Saturday night, is known as the power capital of the state, the siblings – two brothers and two sisters – who died in the incident used to study at night by candle light since there was no electricity in the area for the past several days.
“On Friday after midnight, they went off to sleep without blowing out the candle and it fell over causing the fire in the room. Their charred bodies were later found in the room,” said Singrauli police superintendent Anurag Kumar, adding that the postmortem report indicated children died of suffocation.
The children’s father Mohammad Shafiq, a small-time coal transporter, told police that his eldest son Mohammad Ali (16) was teaching his siblings by candle light till 11 p.m. or so. Ali was the only one who managed to escape from the burning room and informed his parents, sleeping in the other room, of the fire.
By the time his parents and other residents could come for help, the fire had engulfed the entire room, said the SP, adding apparently the children fell unconscious and were badly burnt. By the time, the four were rescued, two children had already died.
The two other died on way to the hospital.