Shillong, Jan 22: Gauri Das and Sujata Thapa were coping with the loss as well-wishers from the neighbourhood tried to console them. But the grief was weighing on them and it was palpable.
Both Das and Thapa lost all their possession in a fire that gutted their Assam-type rented house near Laban Bengalee Girls’ Higher Secondary School, a few yards from Laban police station, on Sunday evening.
Das noticed the fire, which is suspected to have started by a short circuit, when she was busy attending to guests. Thapa and her family members were in the church. “We ran out of the house. We could not save anything. There was a laptop and some cash too. Everything is gone,” Das said and added that the shawl she was wrapping herself with belonged to her daughter.
Thapa was sitting nearby. Her sunken eyes said it all. She choked as she talked about the fire. She was a tenant in the house for the last three years and stayed with her mother and daughter.
Das lived with her husband, Bipul Das, who is a former employee of Survey of India. Her younger daughter was also with her. They shifted to the house five years ago after his retirement. Both the families are planning to take shelter in their relatives’ houses till they find a house.
Red Cross provided help as it sent blankets and a few household articles for immediate use.
The owner, Bijoya Wahlang, was at a loss as the house was her only source of income. She said she was yet to approach the district administration for help.
A police officer said that the fire due to short circuit may have originated from a fridge.
