Five children suffocated on Wednesday after a fire broke out in a hay store in Chak 468 JB, Chiniot, police said.
Rajoa Sadat Station House Officer (SHO) Rana Anwar identified the deceased as Abu Bakar, 5, Chand Ali, 4, Bushra Bibi, 10, Amina, 3, and Khizra, 6.
He said they had been roasting corns in a hay store when it caught fire apparently due to a spark from the oven.
The children fainted from inhaling the smoke. When they were taken to the district headquarters hospital doctors pronounced them dead.
Maqsood Ahmad, the father of Amina and Khizra, told police he and his brother Jaffar, father of Abu Bakar and Ali, had gone harvesting when the fire started.
“I saw smoke emitting from my house and ran there along with Jaffar,” he said.
“I put out the fire, entered the store and found the children lying unconscious.”
He said Rescue-1122 were called and took them to the hospital.
Zamin Ali, a neighbour, said most of the men and women in the area were busy in the fields at the time of the fire. “The children were alone. They were playing with my kids when one of them proposed they should roast corns.”
“They went inside the store and asked my son, Rafiq, to go back to his home,” he said.
He said some 15 minutes after Rafiq had left them clouds of smoke were seen rising from Ahmad’s home.
“I rushed there but the house was locked. I cried for help and attracted some other neighbours’ attraction. We all tried but failed to get inside the house,” he said.
“One of us then ran to the fields and told Ahmad and Jaffar,” he said.
He said they had found the children lying unconscious near the fire.
The SHO said the bodies had been sent for autopsy. He said the medical report had found suffocation to be the cause of their death.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 1st, 2014.