Elderly woman scheduled to leave for pilgrimage dies in Srinagar house fire
KASHMIR NEWS TRUST
A 62-year-old woman was charred to death after a fire broke out in the Aalikadal area of Srinagar city on Saturday afternoon.
The interior parts of the three-story house were completely destroyed while a couple of adjacent houses suffered partial damages in the inferno.
Local sources told news agency Kashmir News Trust that a fire broke out in the house of one Gulzar Ahmed Mir in the congested Aalikadal area. Lone elderly woman present in the house as per locals couldn’t come out of the house due to her poor eyesight.
“The deceased woman was my cousin who was alone in the house when the fire broke out in the kitchen. I tried to save her, even opened the door but the flames emanating from the room pushed me back,” said a man adding that the deceased woman along with her husband was scheduled to leave for the Hajh pilgrimage in the coming days.
Thousands of people participated in her last rites. Locals identified the deceased woman as Nafeeza Begum wife of Gulzar Ahmed Mir. She is survived by her two married daughters and a son.
Some locals claimed that leakage of gas was the cause of the fire, however, a police official said that they have registered a case and trying to ascertain the cause of the fire.
Locals thanked police and firefighters for the timely help. “With the efforts of firefighters, police, and locals, the fire didn’t spread to other houses. We thank them wholeheartedly,” they said. [KNT]
