Smoking kills: Man, two children die in fire

Incident caused after a carelessly thrown cigarette lands near a petrol container.

BAHALWALPUR:

A carelessly thrown cigarette killed a smoker, two of his children and critically injured two others, including two women, and completely burnt down their house

Neighbours said that the fire was caused by the negligence of Imran, who was smoking a cigarette at the time. According to reports, Imran had carelessly thrown away a burning cigarette and it landed near the fuel container which caught fire. The family said that the fuel was kept for personal use.

Two females, Parveen Mai and Jamni Mai, and three children, Zubair, Razaq Hussain and Mahwish, received burn injuries. The victims were shifted to the Bahawal Victoria Hospital where two of them, Mahwish and Zubair, succumbed to their injuries.

Doctors said that the condition of the other fire victims was critical.

According to an emergency ward doctor, the victims had burn injuries on “almost 60 to 70 per cent” of their bodies, including their faces and heads. However, he said: “This hospital is not fully equipped to handle such cases. We have asked the family to shift them to a better equipped hospital in Multan.”

Meanwhile, one of the neighbours said the family “used to sell petrol and stocked it inside the house.”

However, Ghulam Hussain, the owner of the burnt house,  denied the allegation that his family sold petrol or stored it for reselling, saying that they had stored fuel in the house for their motorcycle since they lived far from the city centre.

No case has been registered so far.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 26^th, 2011.