Six lives lost in tragic Meerut house fire.
SP Avinash Pandey said injured family rushed Monday night; six heartbreakingly declared dead at civil hospital.
The narrow lanes of Lisadi Gate are quiet now. The kind of quiet that settles after a storm, after the shouting stops, after the ambulances leave. But last night, these same lanes were filled with fire and smoke and the sound of people screaming for help.
It started somewhere inside Iqbal Ahmad’s house. A spark. A short circuit. A cooking cylinder. We don’t know yet. What we know is that by 8:49 pm, the flames had found their way through the rooms, through the curtains, through the clothes hanging on lines. Through the lives of a family.
Six people are gone now. Women. Children. People who had dinner together Monday night, who argued about small things, who laughed at something someone said. People who had no idea that this ordinary Monday would be their last.
The injured were rushed to the civil hospital. Think about that ride. The speed. The sirens. The desperate hope that if they just got there fast enough, everything would be okay. But hospitals have limits. Doctors have limits. And by Tuesday morning, six bodies lay under white sheets, waiting for someone to identify them.
SP Avinash Pandey stood outside the hospital and gave the facts to reporters. The time of the call. The rescue operation. The number six. But facts don’t capture the sound of a mother realizing her child is gone. Facts don’t capture the weight of a father carrying a small body through smoke-filled rooms, praying to reach the door.
Iqbal Ahmad’s house. That’s how it will be remembered now. Not by the address, not by the street name, but by the man who lived there, who maybe lost everyone, who will spend the rest of his life walking through rooms that smell of ash instead of his family.
In Lisadi Gate, the neighbors are gathered outside. They bring water, they offer tea, they do what neighbors do when words fail. Someone will arrange the funeral. Someone will call the relatives. Someone will sit with Iqbal through the night, because that’s what you do when fire takes everything.
And somewhere in Meerut, six spaces at dinner tables will remain empty tonight. Six beds will not be slept in. Six toothbrushes will dry out, unused.
A spark. A moment. And six lives, reduced to photographs and memories and the unbearable weight of a Tuesday morning.