A sleeping mother and child were charred after a thatched hut caught fire in Thakurpukur at dawn on Sunday.

Sabita Misra, 29, and her two-year-old son Lakshmikanta didn?t even realise that their hut was ablaze before the roof collapsed on them.

Two fire tenders doused the fire around 5.30 am. The bodies were found in bed.

Preliminary investigations by the fire brigade and the police have revealed that like every other night, Sabita had kept a kerosene lamp alight in the corner of the room.

?It seems the kerosene spilled out of the lamp, resulting in the fire,? said a fire brigade official.

Ranjit Mondol, a neighbour, stated: ?There was a stench in the air, but we did not realise that Sabita?s house had caught fire. We were awakened by a rumble, but a blanket of smoke and dense fog had made it almost impossible for us to see the fire.?

Sabita?s husband Krishnakanta, who is employed as a sentry in the neighbourhood, was not home at the time of the fire. He returned early in the morning, only to learn about the loss.

?I bid them goodbye last night, but did not realise that it was the last time I was seeing them. My whole world has collapsed,? he lamented.

The Misras had come to the city from Bhadrak, in Orissa, about three months ago after Krishnakanta found a job as a labourer.

?They seemed a happy family and quite content with whatever they had. I never thought that such a thing could happen to them,? said Sahiba, another neighbour.

Their hut was part of a cluster of 12 thatched dwellings on Diamond Harbour Road. Most of the men worked as labourers.

The residents first realised that one of the huts had caught fire around 3.30 am.

?By then, the Misras? hut was aflame. Once the fire was put out, we took Sabita and the child to Vidyasagar Hospital, hoping that someone could help them in some way, but they were already dead,? Sahiba recalled.