An eight-year-old girl died of burns after a fire broke out accidentally in her house in Belagavi on Monday night.
Kasturi Ranu Malakawad of Raghunath Pet was caught in the fire that spread from a lamp lit in front of the portrait of her family deity.
A student of second standard in the Government Primary School in Anagol, she was the youngest of three siblings. The lamp was still burning when the family had had dinner and retired for the night in its two-room house on Monday night.
As the fire spread from the lamp, it engulfed clothes and wooden articles in the house. Ranu Malakawad and his wife ran out along with their two children but they could not save their daughter.
“Gusty winds must have spread the fire fast. The fire was so strong that neither the family members nor their neighbours could enter the house for the next one hour or so. After some time, some people entered the house and tried to bring the girl out. She was dead by the time she could be taken to a hospital,” the police said.
A case has been registered. Parashuram Malakawad, uncle of the deceased girl, has urged the State government to grant compensation to the family.