Horror blaze was accidental

A fierce blaze which ripped through a house killing three generations of the same family was started accidentally, fire service officials said today.

Two young children, named by a family friend as three-year-old Pritika Sharma and her seven-year-old brother Sunit, were among the victims of the tragedy yesterday.

Their mother, Dimpal, grandmother Vinod and uncle Veepan were also killed in the fire at their semi-detached home in Leicester.

Only their father, Deepak, who had left home to set up his market stall in the city minutes earlier survived.

A police spokeswoman said today that investigators had ruled out any suspicious circumstances surrounding the blaze and a file was being prepared for the coroner.

A spokesman for Leicester Fire and Rescue Service added that the cause of the fire was accidental but said he could not go into further details until an inquest into the deaths had been opened.

Neighbours reportedly heard Mrs Sharma screaming for help from an upstairs window of the house on Somerville Road in the Rowley Fields area of the city just after 5am yesterday.

Fire crews arrived to find flames leaping from the front and back of the property and were forced to smash their way into the back of the house.

They discovered the five victims killed by the blaze, which had taken hold of the house in minutes.

Mr Sharma, who is believed to have run back to his home to try to save his family, was being comforted by friends and relatives this morning just a few doors away from the blackened shell of his former home.