Two killed in fire at stationery shop-cum-residence

Thane: A woman and her five-year-old daughter were killed in a fire at a shop in Airoli area of Navi Mumbai early today, a fire department official said. The fire broke out around 4 am in the stationery shop in which the victims used to live, Airoli fire station in-charge Eknath Pawar said.

On getting information about the blaze, firemen rushed to the spot. As the shop was locked from inside, they broke open the door to enter the premises engulfed with dense smoke, he said. The fire department personnel found the bodies of Manju Choudhary (28) and her daughter Gayatri Choudhary (5), who apparently died of suffocation, the official said.

The shop owner, his brother and two toddlers, aged 1 and 2, were rescued from the premises, Pawar said. The cause of the fire was being probed, he said, adding that preliminary findings indicated the blaze occurred due to a short-circuit. The bodies have been sent to a government hospital for a postmortem examination, he added.