Woman dies in mysterious house fire in Rajshahi
An elderly woman was allegedly burnt alive in a fire that torched her tin-roofed mud house in Rajshahi's Durgapur upazila early yesterday.
Durgapur police said gold ornaments had nearly melted into the bones of Srimoti Labonno Prova, 85. They recovered the body around 2:30am from Koyamajompur Mondolpara village and sent it to Rajshahi Medical College Hospital for an autopsy.
Officer-in-charge Ruhul Amin said they were yet to ascertain the cause of the fire.
Labonno was crying for help, said her granddaughter Popy Rani. “I could not come out...I am dying,” she quoted her as saying in the final moments.
Two of her three sons, Sanjib Kumar Mondol and Sushil Kumar Mondol, suffered burns trying to put out the fire.
Sushil said they went to sleep around midnight ending celebrations marking winter's end, known as Poush Sasngkranti.
A neighbour, waking to relieve himself, first sounded the alarm around 12:30am.
“The fire was running speedily across the tin roofs of the eight-tin-roofed house. Blue flames of the fire were so huge. I never saw such a dreadful fire in my life. It cannot originate accidentally,” he said.
Villagers, irrespective of their faiths, joined hands to put out the fire within around two hours.
The youngest son, Subas Kumar Mondol, a pharmacist at Rajshahi TB Hospital, said all their land documents, some domestic animals, Tk 50,000 and five maunds of rice were also gutted.
“It was a pre-planned attack to destroy our family...Who knows who would want to evict us from our land?” he said.
He claimed that six months ago, unidentified persons set fire to a stack of straw in their courtyard.
Some of the 22 Hindu families living at the village also claimed to have fallen victim to arson in the past few years. However, no villager of other faiths suffered fire damage.
A stack of straw of Arun Kumar Mondol burnt down two years ago, followed by the kitchen of Rabi Das last September and another straw pile of Bimol Pramanik in October. The last fire on January 7 burnt down Nripen Kumar Mondol's kitchen.
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