An elderly woman died of burns after her quilt caught fire apparently from a room heater at her Behala home on Tuesday morning.
Police said Purnima Dey, 82, a resident of Nafar Chandra Das Road, was asleep when her quilt caught fire.
“The elderly woman was sleeping in her room. Around 2am on Tuesday, a fire was spotted in her room. She was taken to a private hospital along EM Bypass by her family with burn injuries. She died later in the afternoon on Tuesday,” said an officer at Behala police station.
Findings of a preliminary inquiry by the police suggest that the quilt fell on the room heater and caught fire.
The room heater will be sent for forensic tests, the police said. “There were no signs of an electrical short circuit. As there were no other sources of fire, it is suspected that the quilt caught fire from the room heater, which was placed close to the victim’s bed,” said the officer.
Dey, a widow, lived with one of her sons.
An officer said it is advisable to keep electrical gadgets away from the sleeping place.
Kolkata has witnessed multiple incidents where people have lost lives in their sleep either because of a short circuit caused by an overheated laptop or from a fire triggered by a half-burned cigarette. “The chances of fatality increase manifold in winter as most sleep with their windows closed. If there is a fire, the smoke gets trapped in the house, causing asphyxia,” the officer said.
