Five children among seven members of a family burnt alive in Pindi

RAWALPINDI: Seven members of a family, including five children, were burnt alive in a fire at a double storey house at Chaklala Scheme-III on Wednesday morning when sudden fire erupted due to short-circuit after loadshedding.
The children were aged between 4 to 14 years, while, the house owner, Shaukat Ashraf had solemnised his second marriage some two months back after the death of his first wife.The rising flames had reduced the house to ashes due to heavy woodwork in the house. Firefighters of Rescue-1122 prevailed over the flames but could not rescue any member of the family who had died due to suffocation before the rescuers arrived.
Rescue-1122 shifted the bodies to the District Headquarters Hospital for postmortem.
Those who witnessed the scene told the media that a sound of a small blast was heard at about 5 am after the one-hour routine loadshedding. Rising flames later swallowed the entire building within 15 minutes, the witnesses said. But no cry for help or shriek of any of the inmates was heard, they added.
“The flames came out of the building and became uncontrollable after about half an hour after the circuit breaker blew up,” neighbouring witnesses maintained.The owner, Shaukat Ashraf, lived in the upper portion of the house. He was running property business and owned big property in Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Gujar Khan but was engaged in litigation with his brothers and sisters on distribution of inherited property, the area police, quoting family sources, said. His brother-in-law Anjum Shahzad was residing at the ground floor with his family, the police added.
Shaukat Ashraf, 35, his second wife Ayesha Shaukat, 32, and their five children including Fatima Shaukat, 4, Usman Shaukat, 6, Umar Shaukat, 10, Mohsin Shaukat, 8 and Hassan Shaukat, 14, were sleeping in different rooms when the house caught fire at about 5 am.
Eyewitnesses in the neighbourhood told the media that the fire began at around 5 in the morning. After seeing smoke and fire in the upper portion of the house, neighbours called Rescue 1122.
The locals reached the scene when flames rose out of the building and tried to rescue the people trapped in the flames. Rescue-1122 said that they received call at 5.06 am and the firefighting unit rushed to the scene and reached there in 7 minutes but the flames had gone out of control. The rescuers broke the windows to save those trapped upstairs, but all members of the family had died mostly due to asphyxiation in heavy wooden smoke. Those living downstairs were evacuated from the building without any loss of time.
The house contained heavy woodwork which most probably caused fire to spread quickly leaving charred furniture and burnt rooms. The upper portion was completely gutted. The police indicating a dimension of the case said that entire family was engaged in litigation on the distribution of legacy while second marriage of Shaukat aggravated hostility among the relatives. The people engaged in investigation of the case were of the view that every aspect will be covered during the course of investigation. However, the postmortem report will bring out a clear picture and help investigators to arrive at the right conclusion. Meanwhile, Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif expressed deep grief over the tragic incident. He has ordered an expeditious and proper inquiry to know the real cause of fire and death of the seven-member family.