Babu Gupta

Right hand crippled by polio, run over by a truck at 17 and suffering a speech problem, a youth alerted his father to fire but died himself.

On Wednesday night, Babu Gupta, 25, was the first to wake up after their ground-floor, rented room in Burrabazar’s Tarak Chatterjee Lane caught fire. He alerted father Om Prakash, who immediately ran out, but Babu could not. The truck accident had left him unable to walk properly.

Realising that his son was trapped inside, Om Prakash tried to get back into the room but could not as the door frame had caught fire. Babu, who had told his father he had seen someone toss a fireball into the room, was crying for help from inside.

Om Prakash, allegedly drunk at the time, ran to his in-laws’ house on Rabindra Sarani, where he and Babu ate dinner a few hours earlier. “We rushed to the spot but the fire had by then engulfed the room and spread to an adjacent one,” recalled Babu’s mother Usha, who lives in her parents’ house.

“My son woke me up saying someone had thrown a fireball into the room through the window. The bedsheet was already in flames. I took the key from him, opened the door and stepped out. But before I could return, the door frame had caught fire. Neither could I step in nor could Babu rush out,” said Om Prakash, on his way to RG Kar Hospital to fetch his son’s body.

“We have learnt that Om Prakash was drunk when the fire broke out. But he managed to run out... We are investigating why Babu could not come out,” said a police officer, who was not sure what had led to the blaze.

Three fire tenders reached the spot and brought the fire under control.

The family members alleged that landlord Satya Dey, who lives with his family on the first floor of the two-storeyed house, had ignited the fire to drive out the tenants. The Guptas used to pay a monthly rent of Rs 100.

“Dey had asked the Guptas three days ago to move out or else he would set the room on fire,” said Om Prakash’s brother Rajkumar.

Om Prakash alleged that when he stepped out he saw Dey’s wife Kanika standing near the room. “But she did not make any attempt to douse the blaze.” The Deys could not be contacted.

Some neighbours said the Guptas and the Deys would often fight over the tenancy right. “Narayan Tikedar was the original tenant of the room. After he died three years ago, his son allowed Om Prakash to stay there,” said Barendranath Pal, a neighbour.