London: Another fire incident, this time outside Pakistan takes precious lives of as many as five Pakistanis including a Pakistani mother and four of her children who were burnt in the early hours of Monday in a suspected arson attack on their home outside London, in Barn Mead, Harlow, media reports said.
According to the reports, Sabah Usmani and her sons Sohaib, 11, and Rayan, six, as well as 12-year-old daughter Hira, died at the spot in heavy blazing incident, what firefighters described as “harrowing scenes”.
However, a third son, Muneeb, nine, died in hospital while Maheen, a three-year-old girl, remains in serious condition in a specialist burns unit at the Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford.
The family belonged to to Karachi, moved to UK after they lived in Saudi Arabia for more than a decade.
A spokesman for the investigative team said, “The cause of the fire is being investigated and detectives cannot rule in or rule out all lines of inquiry and cannot guess on the cause or motive.”
“In the history of Essex Police, seldom has there been an incident of this gravity, in which five people, four of them children, have lost their lives,” Assistant Chief Constable of Essex Police Gary Beautridge told a press conference.
Meanwhile, her husband Abdul Shakoor, who is also a doctor, is being treated in the local hospital as he suffered minor injuries as he fought to rescue his family from the blaze.