A couple and their two-year-old son died of suffocation after a portion of their house in south-west Delhi's Chhawla area was gutted in a fire, police said.
The victims, identified as Abdul Rehman (35), a property dealer, his wife Shabana (30) and their son Abdul Faizal died due to smoke inhalation as they could not escape from the house, but they received no burn injuries during the fire late last night, they said.
Rehman's mother-in-law and brother-in-law, who were also staying with them, however, managed to escape unhurt.
The incident took place at around 12.30 am when Rehman, his wife and son were sleeping on the ground floor while his mother-in-law and brother-in-law were at the first floor of the house.
At around 12.30 am, Rehman's mother-in-law woke up because of suffocation. She ran outside of her room and found fire blazing from the ground floor.
She screamed for help and rushed to the room where her son was sleeping. The two then managed to escape by jumping to another building from the balcony.
But the three others who were in the ground floor got stuck, police said.
After about half-an-hour, fire tenders reached the spot and doused the flames.
They found the three members of the family lying unconscious in their bedroom.
All of them were rushed to a nearby hospital where Rehman and Shabana were declared dead on arrival while Faizal was referred to Safdarjung hospital.
The toddler died around around 5 pm today during the treatment.
All of them died of suffocation, none of them received burn injuries, police said.
"In the initial investigation it seems that fire broke out due to short circuit in the house. We are investigating the case from all plausible angles to know the exact cause of the fire," Deputy Police Commissioner (South-West) Suman Goyal said.
