A woman and her five children were burnt alive when a massive fire erupted in a hut located in Urdha village in Ramkol police station area of Kushinagar late on Wednesday night.
The cause of the fire remains a mystery.
The deceased were identified as Sangeeta (38) and her five children, Ankit (10), Lakshmeena (9), Rita (3), Gita (2) and Babu (1).
According to the local residents, Sangeeta and her husband, Navami, had some dispute following which he slept with the children outside the hut. Around midnight, Sangeeta took her children inside the hut and locked the bamboo door and sometime after this the fire broke out in which she and all the five children were burnt alive.
The police are trying to ascertain whether the husband set the hut on fire or the woman set herself and her children on fire or the fire broke out accidentally.
The bodies were sent for post-mortem.
According to reports, Saryu Khatik, a resident of Urdha village under Ramkola police station of Kushinagar, has two sons. One of his sons lives in Ludhiana, Punjab with his family. The second son, Navami lived in Bapunagar, Urdha Ward-2 of Ramkola Nagar Panchayat in Kushinagar with his wife Sangeeta and five children. Saryu and his wife live in a separate hut near his son’s hut.
According to Navami, for three days he was having a dispute with his wife over some domestic issue. When Sangeeta informed her parents about the fight, they asked Navami to send her to her maternal home. However, Navami refused to send her and this annoyed Sangeeta and she did not cook food on Wednesday night.
Navami claimed that he fed the children with the day’s leftover rice and slept with the kids under the tree outside the hut. After midnight, Sangeeta came and woke up all the children and took them inside the hut one by one. Half an hour later, at around 12:30 am, flames started coming out of the hut.
According to Navami, when the children shouted for help, he ran to the hut but the bamboo door was locked from inside. As the fire engulfed the entire hut he raised an alarm following which other residents also woke up and tried to douse the fire. By the time the fire brigade controlled the fire, Sangeeta and the five innocent children had burnt to death.
All the household articles kept in the hut were reduced to ashes. The cooking gas cylinder kept in the hut also exploded.
Meanwhile, three women and two children drowned in Chhoti Gandak river in Tarkulwa area of Deoria district on Wednesday evening.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath expressed grief over the loss of life in this incident. He ordered financial assistance of Rs 4 lakh to the families of each of the deceased.
On Wednesday evening, a group of 11 people were taking a bath in the Chhoti Gandak which flows near Ratanpura village. One person slipped into deep water and started drowning, and others rushed to save him and were also drowned.
District Magistrate Akhand Pratap Singh said three women and two children drowned, while two people were rescued by locals and admitted to a hospital.
Police identified the deceased as Asheya (40), her son Dilshan (14), Shakeena (40) and her son Tinku Ansari (12) and Asheya Khatoon (20).
The bodies were sent for post-mortem.
