3-year-old charred to death in Machhiwara

LUDHIANA: A three-year-old girl from a Nomad community was charred to death while her grandfather suffered burn injuries after hutments near Powat village of Machhiwara caught fire. The deceased was identified as Parveena daughter of Ayub Khan whereas her grandfather was identified as 60 years old Nawabdin.
As per reports, many Gujjar community members, who are into dairy business, have set up small hutments at Powat village and have been living there for many years. Early on wednesday morning, fire occurred in one of the shanties of Gujjars.
Police officials said that fire spread so fast that soon it engulfed the shanties of the community members and they were caught off guard. They added that by the time they tried to rescue their family members, the girl who was sleeping in her shanty, was burnt alive whereas.
Ayub Khan said that apart from his daughter whom he lost in fire, he also lost money and gold jewellry. He added that other community members also lost cash and gold jewellry apart from household good and clothes in the fire. Cops said that the cattle belonging to the community members also bore the brunt of fire and many cattle received burn injuries. They added that after receiving information about the fire, a team of fire control department officials led by fireman Davinder Singh from Samrala fire department reached the spot and started efforts to control fire and doused off the fire with lot of effort. Fire department officials said that their two vehicles went to spot at around 9.30am. They added that fire had spread from a garbage dump that was set on fire.