Uncle remembers toddler Arafat killed in Old Dhaka fire

Arafat was dear to his father and uncles. The three-year-old would leave his mother at home to sit with them at their shop at Churihatta.

He is one of the victims of a devastating fire in Old Dhaka. He burnt to death along with his father Mohammad Ali and uncle Apu Raihan on Wednesday night.

Scenes of chaos at Old Dhaka as massive fire spreads from a building, causing explosions and the death of at least 70 people in the congested Churihatta neighbourhood. Photo: Asif Mahmud Ove

His other uncle Dipu Hossain survived the blaze that left at least 67 dead, and injured 40 more in the fire at the densely-populated neighbourhood.

Dipu had gone out of the shop just moments before the fire started. The family ran a shop selling prayer beads, prayer mats and towels in the bottom floor of the Shahi Masjid Market at Churihatta in Chawkbazar.

A dead body is recovered from the ruins of a massive fire at Churihatta of Old Dhaka’s Chawkbazar area on Thursday. Photo: Asif Mahmud Ove

Dipu was at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital to identify and take home the bodies of his brothers and nephew. The family is from Rahmatganj of the old town.

“Arafat told me, ‘Chacchu can I kiss you?’ I said, ‘of course’. My nephew was just learning how to speak.”

Scenes of chaos at Old Dhaka as massive fire spreads from a building, causing explosions and the death of at least 70 people in the congested Churihatta neighbourhood. Photo: Asif Mahmud Ove

“He was so extremely dear to us. How will we live without him?” Dipu, who at one point had to run to save himself from the inferno, said he cannot forget the last words of his family members.             

“It was time to close the shop. I told my brother, ‘I’ll go see a friend. You close up the shop’.”

“I barely took forty steps when I heard an explosion. There was fire everywhere. I would have died too.”