Bhashantek house fire: ‘Why haven’t my parents come to see me yet?’

Lying on a hospital bed, nine-year-old Sujan kept asking for his parents and two sisters whenever relatives visited him in the High Dependency Unit (HDU) of the Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery.

"Where are my parents? Why haven't they come to see me? Take me to them."

He was given the same response every time: "They're doing well and will come once they have fully recovered."

Speaking to The Daily Star, Sujan's cousin Saiful Islam said, "We can't dare to tell him that his parents have passed away… His condition is already critical and hearing this news might make it worse."

Sujan, his parents, two sisters and grandmother suffered critical burn injuries after a fire engulfed their house on the ground floor of a two-storey building in the capital's Bhashantek area on Friday

Relatives of the family suspected that gas from a leak in the cooking cylinder accumulated and caused the fire after Sujan's father Liton Mia, 48, lit a mosquito coil.

Liton, 48, breathed his last around 6:00am yesterday with 67 percent burns. His wife Surya Banu, 40, passed away around 7:30pm the day before with 82 percent burns, while Surya's mother Meherunnesa, 70, died on Saturday.

While relatives prepared for the couple's burial in Cumilla, Sujan was being treated at the HDU with 47 percent burns. Doctors said his condition was critical.

His sisters -- Liza, 18, and Lamia, 7, -- are also fighting for their lives at the hospital's Intensive Care Unit.

Like their brother, they were also calling out for their parents and siblings.

"To console them, we sometimes say the condition of their parents is much better," said Saiful.

Their uncle Sohag Mia told The Daily Star, "Liza is old enough to assume that something bad happened to her mother and grandmother, based on our attitude and conversations with hospital staffers."

"Uncle, please take care of my father," Sohag quoted Liza as saying on Monday night.

Sohag said the bodies will be buried after Liton and Surya's eldest child, Aklima Akter, who is currently abroad, returns tomorrow.

"My brother's family was supposed to visit our home in Khagrachhari's Dighinala after Eid … The fire destroyed everything."