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Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Two children charred to death :: BENGALURU, February 10, 2015 ::

Two young children were charred to death as the cot they were sleeping on caught fire due to an electric short circuit in their house at Lakshman Rao Nagar, near Adugodi, on Monday evening. Their mother had switched on a water immersion coil heater in a bucket of water next to the cot, which is suspected to have caused an electric short circuit.
The deceased Naveen Kumar (6) and his younger sister Kanishka Rani (4) were sleeping in the bedroom of their third floor flat on Monday evening, when the accident occurred. The kid’s mother Satya (32) had locked the bedroom from outside and the main door of the house, and gone downstairs to fetch water from a public tap.
Munni Reshma, a neighbour told The Hindu that she observed dense smoke emanating from the house at around 5.30 p.m. and called out to Satya who was downstairs.
“We tried to get into the house, but it was locked. Precious time was lost by the time Satya came up to the third floor and opened the door,” she recounted. She said that while many residents of the building tried to barge into the house, they couldn’t as there was dense smoke and fire.
It was more than half an hour before a Fire and Emergency Services personnel rushed to the spot and doused the fire. However, by the time they went into the bedroom, the two kids were charred to death. Fire department officials said they got a call at 5.45 p.m. and rushed a fire tender from Jayanagar fire station.
Wilson, a neighbour and childhood friend of Manjunath, the children’s father, said Manjunath, an autorickshaw driver, had big dreams for his kids. “He used to work hard and was saving up money for their education. The tragedy that has now befallen is too large to even comprehend,” he said.
The bedroom in which the children died, unable to escape. Naveen and Kanishka (inset).— Photos: Sudhakara Jain

An immersion coil heater next to the cot the kids were sleeping on may have caused a short circuit