PATNA: Six children, including a boy and his sister, were charred to death in a straw-hut at village Kabaiyya under Palasi police station area in Araria district on Tuesday.
Palasi police station SHO cum DSP (probationer) Azaz Hanif Mani told TOI over phone that the deceased were identified as Barkash (4), Ali Hassan (5), Dilnawaz (5), Ashraf (5) and his sister Gulnaz (4) and one Khushniha (6).
Governor Phagu Chauhan and CM Nitish Kumar expressed grief over the accident. In a press statement, the CM office said a cheque of Rs4 lakh was handed over to each of the four aggrieved families as ex gratia payment.
He said the accident took place around 12.30pm and the entire hut made of dry straws was engulfed in flames within a few minutes, giving no chance to anyone to rescue the children trapped inside. “Villagers told the police that the children might be roasting the wheat earrings brought from the nearby fields, causing fire. The wind was also strong at the time of the accident,” he said.
“When it caught fire, they hid inside the hut out of fear and didn’t raise any alarm,” Mani said.
He said the position of the bodies indicates that all six had hugged each other tightly out of fear at the time of accident. Mani said a fire tender had reached the spot within few minutes but nothing could be done as dry straws burned very quickly. “Police also reached the spot within ten minutes,” he said.
Mani said the bodies were handed over to their parents after postmortem. “The bereaved families are very poor. Besides ex-gratia payment, the district administration also provided Rs3,000 to each family under Kabir Anteyeshti scheme for performing the last rites,” he said.
He said a case of unnatural deaths was registered with Palasi police station in this connection.