Hyderabad: Garbage fire kills 6-year-old girl

Hyderabad: A six-year-old girl was charred to death when she was playing near a burning GHMC garbage pit in Millatnagar in Chandrayangutta.

Saniya Fatima, a Class I student, went too close to the fire to collect a ball, and her clothes caught fire, setting her afire.

The incident began when Saniya and a few other kids were playing in the street with a ball. “One of the kids threw the ball, which ended up near the garbage pit. Somebody had lit the garbage and a fire was slowly spreading. Saniya, unattended by her parents, went too close to the fire to collect the ball. Accident-ally her dress caught fire,” said Chandrayan-gutta sub-inspector M. Srinivas Rao.

As Saniya started screaming for help, some locals rushed to her rescue and one of them put off the flames. But by then it was already too late. “The child had sustained 90 per cent burns on her body. She was then rushed to a private hospital, from where she was shifted to Osmania General Hospital. Doctors declared her dead after a few hours,” said another cop.

“We are investigating if GHMC staffers burnt the garbage. As of now, a case for suspicious death (under CrPc 174) has been filed,” Mr Srinivas Rao.

Saniya’s father Abdul Razzak alleged that a private hospital asked for lakhs of rupees to treat the kid and hence they were forced to shift her to the OGH.