Mother, son charred in Karwan Bazar slum fire
Over 300 families left homeless in shivering cold
Alo Begum was at Karwan Bazar kitchen market late at night to buy leftover vegetables which she later sells to make a living. Suddenly, she heard screaming and fire billowing up from the shanties just a few metres away where her home was.
"I rushed to my home, only to find my daughter and her son charred by then," grieving Alo told reporters while waiting for the bodies at Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College.
The fire broke out at the Mollahbari slum next to the Bangladesh Film Development Corporation (BFDC) gate in Tejgaon area of the capital at 2:25am on Saturday.
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The fire was brought under control at 3:40am on Saturday with the efforts of 13 units of Fire Service and Civil Defence.
Firefighters recovered the burnt bodies of two people from the slum later.
The fire also gutted over 300 homes leaving several thousand people homeless in the ongoing shivering cold.
Sharming held onto her son until her last breath
Alo's daughter Sharmin Akter Karima, 23, and her son Nafis, 2, died in the fire. Her son Likhon, 10, also suffered burn injuries in the blaze.
"Sharmin used to live with her in-laws in Jamalpur. She came to visit us on 5 December and was supposed to return home on 15 January. Despite having a train ticket, fate had other plans," shared Alo Begum with The Business Standard.
Sharming held onto her son until her last breath. The firefighters had to separate their bodies and place them in bags, Alo said. "Her bangles remained unburnt, but my daughter was tragically reduced to a small, charred portion."
Recalling the incident, Alo explained, "The flames initially caught toddler Nafis, and Sharmin, unwilling to leave her son, also caught fire. Likhon rushed out but suffered burns in the process."
Jamil Hossain, sub inspector of Tejgaon Industrial Police Station, told TBS that the bodies of a woman and a child were so badly burnt that they could not be recognised. He mentioned that they would have to conduct a DNA test to identify and hand over the bodies.
The fire might have originated from an electric short-circuit or gas supply connection, said Fire Service director for operation Lieutenant Colonel Tajul Islam.
The fire service formed a five-member probe committee, led by Tajul, over the incident and asked to file their report by 15 working days.
Tajul explained that the slum near the rail track at Karwan Bazar had about 400 shanties, some of them being two-storied. The slum, constructed with wood and bamboo, allowed the flames to spread rapidly.
Kulsuma Begum, 36, a fish cutter at Karwan Bazar kitchen market, has been living in the slum for the past 10 years who narrowly escaped the blaze.
"We were in deep sleep, and if the elevated expressway construction workers hadn't called us from above, we would have died inside," Begum lamented, recounting her harrowing experience.
Mohammad Hridoy, 35, another fish cutter, said, "If the expressway construction workers hadn't thrown brick chips and stones to alert us, we would have been charcoaled. We haven't eaten anything as of now; we really need some food.".
Visiting the spot, Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Habibur Rahman said that most of the residents of the slum are daily labourers at Karwan Bazar. The slum is built by a local in the area and it does not have any proper exit road.
