BOOKED FOR MURDER: Landlord-cum-promoter Kashinath Jaiswal in Howrah court on Friday. Picture by Dipankar Mazumdar

Forensic experts probing the gas-and-grab tragedy at 276 GT Road, in Howrah, confirmed on Friday that cooking gas had been pumped in before the 8 ftx6 ft room was set ablaze. This came within hours of the fire claiming its second victim — Deepali Shaw, 13.

“The pattern of the fire suggests that it was caused by LPG. This has also been corroborated by the presence of a five-kg cylinder and a tube lying near the drainpipe leading to the room,” said D. Sengupta, the director of the state forensic laboratory (SFL).

The accused, landlord-cum-promoter Kashinath Jaiswal, and his associate Amarnath Prasad, were produced in Howrah court on Friday and remanded in police custody till February 17.

They have been booked under sections 302 (murder), 120B (conspiracy), 326 (causing grievous hurt) and 436 (to make mischief by fire) for the blaze that reduced the home of the Shaws to rubble around 3am on Thursday.

The diabolical plot to vacate the premises and make way for a multi-storeyed building-— that is what Jaiswal stands accused of — had claimed the life of Kewala Devi, 40, and grievously injured her husband Ram Bahadur Shaw and their daughter Deepali.

The elder son of the Shaws, Hridesh, 18, escaped the blaze as he was spending the night at his private tutor’s house, while younger son Dilesh, 15, suffered only minor burns.

Early on Friday, around 24 hours after her mother was charred to death, Deepali succumbed to her burns in Howrah District Hospital. The condition of Ram Bahadur Shaw, 50, remains critical.

According to police, Kewala Devi and and Deepali had suffered the most severe burns because they were sleeping on a mat nearest to the drainpipe. Ram Bahadur and Dilesh were on a wooden cot.

Terming it a “rare” case, SFL director Sengupta said: “The small room would virtually become a gas chamber if cooking gas was pumped in.... We are trying to figure out the origin of the fire.”

An official of the SFL said a matchstick was the most likely cause of the fire and suspected that the LPG cylinder had been left behind near the site of the crime out of panic by the conspirators, once the blaze broke out.

The day after the tragedy at 276 GT Road, more angry voices were raised against landlord Kashinath Jaiswal, who had got a building plan sanctioned for a four-storeyed house at the site but was thwarted by the resistance from the slum-dwellers, led by the Shaws.

Things came to a head when Jaiswal allegedly cut off electricity lines, making it impossible for the Shaw siblings to study after dark.

Shibpur police had allegedly turned a deaf ear to their protests against Jaiswal then and even threatened to put Hridesh behind bars for raising his voice against the “powerful” promoter.

“When Jaiswal threatened to kill us, I went to the police station to lodge a complaint. The duty officer told me to get lost and even threatened to arrest me,” Hridesh alleged.

“We did not get support from the authorities but we refused to vacate the room, as we had nowhere else to go,” added the topper of Maria’s Day School, in Howrah.

When Tapan Mukherjee, the additional officer-in-charge of Shibpur police station, was asked to explain the police action, he said: “I cannot comment on such allegations.”

Ram Bahadur and son Hridesh allegedly had a face-off last November with Jaiswal’s associate Amarnath Prasad, who threatened them with dire consequences. The threat became palpable last week when Kewala Devi spotted a few men hovering around their house. They even told her son Dilesh that they were going to teach the family a lesson very soon, recounted neighbour Babu Sau.