Tiruchy teen uses sanitiser to light firewood, succumbs after suffering 65 pc burns

B Sriram, son of Balamurugan from Viragupettai at EB Road, Tiruchy, a Class 8 student, had called his friends to prepare rice as part of ‘kootanchoru’. This is a form of group cooking in which participants bring all the ingredients needed for cooking from homes and combine everything together, cook and serve among themselves. 

Sriram, who loved to cook, led the group of four, who joined him on Monday around 4.15 pm and started preparing to cook jackfruit seeds in a secluded place in their locality. When everything was ready to be cooked, Sriram was making the firewood they had collected from the neighbourhood. Sources said the boy had brought sanitizer from home and poured a portion of it on the firewood and lit it. At first there was hardly any fire and so he poured a larger amount of the sanitiser on the wood. This led to a massive blaze and Sriram was on fire. The bottle of sanitiser also caught the flames. His friends immediately raised an alarm. 

On hearing the screamings, elders rushed to the spot and put out the fire, rescued Sriram and rushed him to the GH where he was undergoing treatment at the critical care unit for more than 65% burns. 

However, on Wednesday, Sriram succumbed. Fort Police registered a case of accidental fire and the body was handed over to the parents after postmortem.