Ashulia Fire: Woman dies from burns

A woman, one of the five people injured in a fire caused by leaky gas lines in a two-storey building in Ashulia, died at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) early yesterday.

Hasina Begum, 50, with 96 percent burns, succumbed to her injuries around 4:30am, said Partha Shankar Paul, resident surgeon at the burn unit of DMCH.

Hasina's family of five received critical burn injuries in the fire that broke out on the ground floor of the building in Manikganjpara around 7:00am on Friday when someone attempted to light a gas stove.

The other victims are Hasina's husband Arab Ali, 60, her son Abdullah, 35, daughter-in-law Ripa, 20, and her one-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter Ayesha. All of them are undergoing treatment at the burn unit.

Three of them are in critical condition with between 32 to 88 percent burns on their bodies, Partha said.

Meanwhile, police arrested the owner of the house, Abdul Hamid, on Friday after Shaheen Alam, a relative of the victims, filed a case against him over the incident, said Rejaul Haque, officer-in-charge of Ashulia Police Station.

Before his arrest, Hamid told investigators and reporters that the gas connection to the two-storey building was unauthorised and that he paid a hefty sum to “a group of people” for the gas connection.

Several residents of the building also alleged that gas pipes were being used illegally by their landlord and were faulty.

Mokshedur Rahman, deputy general manager of Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Co. Ltd's Office in Savar, could not be reached for a comment.