Four people were killed as a six-storey multi-use building in the capital鈥檚 Shahjadpur area caught fire on Monday.
One of the deceased people is Miron Samaddar, 60, of Bhandaria in Pirojpur. Identities of three others, all male and aged between 30 and 40, could not be known until Monday evening.
The police, referring to the doctors, said that they died due to suffocation from smoke in the fire.
Fire Service and Civil Defense officials said that the fire originated on the first floor of the building, 鈥楳azumder Villa鈥�, at about 12:15pm.
Two firefighting units from Baridhara fire station brought the flames under control minutes after 1:00pm, said Talha Bin Zasim, media officer of the Fire Service and Civil Defence.
Police said that victim Miron came to Dhaka and stayed at 鈥楬otel Saudia鈥� housed at the building to see off of his son Munim Samaddar who was scheduled to fly from Dhaka Airport for Saudi Arabia as a migrant worker Tuesday evening.
Munim said that his father Miron and his uncle Hiron Samaddar came to Dhaka from their village home in a bid to see him off and boarded at the hotel鈥檚 room number 402.
He said that the fire broke out when his uncle went to have breakfast that killed his father while staying at the hotel then.
Talha said that all four victims were found on the fifth floor 鈥� one inside a bathroom and three at the base of a stairwell.
Fire service officials said that the stairwell door was locked and victims couldn鈥檛 escape their deaths.
Md Shah Jahan, a witness and resident of Bou Bazar area in the capital, said that he saw the fire spreading from the first floor of the building.
He said they were requesting nearby house owners for water but many denied. As a result, the fire spread quickly.
Other witnesses said that the fire spread from the first floor to upper floors. All the floors from the second and the fifth are occupied by the residential hotel 鈥� Hotel Saudia.
Most of the boarders of the hotel are from remote villages as they come to Dhaka for migration purpose, local people said.
Rafiqul Islam, the owner of Ruma Digital Studio on the ground floor of the Mazumder Villa, said that the fire was originated from the first floor and the floor houses a beauty parlour named Golden Tulip Beauty Lounge.
He said that the fire did not affect the ground floor of the building.
One of the owners of the parlour, Mst Farzana, said that the parlour remained shut since July, 2024 when the parlour was attacked and its glasses were damaged.
She said that there were two air-conditioners and a refrigerator in the parlour but there was nothing explosive there.
The bodies of the victims were kept at the morgue of Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
Gulshan police station sub-inspector Mohammad Palash Hossain said that they were trying to identify the unidentified victims.
He said that legal steps would be taken in connection with the incident.