Three-year-old girl charred to death after shanties catch fire near Delhi-Meerut Road

Ghaziabad: A three-year-old girl was charred to death after dozens of shanties caught fire at Sihani village near the Delhi-Meerut Road in Ghaziabad on Monday evening.

Ghaziabad: A three-year-old girl was charred to death after dozens of shanties caught fire at Sihani village near the Delhi-Meerut Road in Ghaziabad on Monday evening.

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The police said there were about 150-200 shanties belonging to ragpickers on a patch of land at Sihani village.

“The girl was not able to move out. Her parents were outside the house. The fire flared up and her parents or their neighbours could not rescue the girl.The fire department doused the fire completely. We will launch a search operation to find any missing person,” said Awaneesh Kumar, circle officer (city 2).

Fire department officials said they received information about the incident at about 3.44pm and fire tenders were pressed into service.

“In all, we had to call 12 fire tenders that came from Kotwali, Sahibabad, Vaishali and Modinagar fire stations. The shanties had loads of plastic material, besides wood and LPG cylinders. Many LPG cylinders also exploded. About half-a-dozen people escaped with minor injuries,” said Sunil Kumar Singh, chief fire officer.

The cause of fire could not be ascertained immediately but it is suspected it could have started from a kitchen.

“It took us about one-and-a-half hours to douse the fire. The operation continued for another half an hour to check if any small fire still raged on at the site. The body of the girl was recovered,” he said.