Even as the death toll in Thursday’s gruesome domestic fire mishap here went up to six on Friday, the city police after stitching up evidences collected in preliminary inquiries registered a murder case suspecting the deceased head of the family Anadi Sahu (55) to be the culprit.
Four persons, including three infants, were charred to death on the spot on Thursday evening when an entire room of Anadi’s rental accommodation at Sector 7 of Markat Nagar was gutted.
While Anadi and his 15-year-old daughter Anita were rushed to hospital with burn injuries, the deceased on the spot were identified to be Anadi’s maternal niece Kuni (40) and her three minor children. Anadi’s only son Arun (23) was away at his medicine shop in the neighbourhood when the incident happened.
“Both Anadi and his daughter Anita died on Friday while undergoing treatment at the SCB Medical College Hospital. But we managed to record the dying declaration of Anita in the presence of a magistrate and a medical officer,” said Cuttack DCP Sanjiv Arora, adding that police had also retrieved a hand note from the house, apparently written by Anadi.
“Basing on the hand note, the dying declaration and a written report of Arun, we firmly suspect that Anadi had set fire to the room pouring kerosene on all,” Arora said, adding that Anadi’s note revealed that there was a dispute in the family over his second marriage.
A native of Bhadrak, Anadi’s first wife Parvati had died in 2002, and he subsequently married one Subhadra Naik of Angul district in 2003. While Anadi had three children from his first wife, there was no issue in his second marriage. But the children and other relatives were not happy with Anadi’s second marriage, police said, quoting his hand note.
Although police claimed to have detected the sensational case, there are a lot of missing links in the police version. Seeing the intensity of the inferno that completely melted a TV set, AC and a fan in the room and the bodies charred beyond recognition, fire brigade experts suspect it not to be caused by kerosene.
“The fire brigade personnel and the scientific team investigating into the cause of the fire have not yet submitted their reports,” the DCP informed.