Three students from Gujarat die in Melbourne house fire

Three students — hailing from Ahmedabad and Vadodara — were charred in a house fire on Thursday morning (Australian time) in Melbourne.

Three students — hailing from Ahmedabad and Vadodara — were charred in a house fire on Thursday morning (Australian time) in Melbourne. The cause of the fire, which engulfed their house in the Footscary area, is still unknown.

The students — Sunil Ramanlal Patel from Ahmedabad, Deepak Prajapati and Jignesh Sadhu from Vadodara — were apparently asleep and were unable get out in time. Fire personnel could not mount any rescue operation. A family of three which also lived in the same house managed to escape.

In Radhe Bungalows in Chadkheda, Ahmedabad, there was a pall of gloom after the family received a phone call from India’s consul-general’s office in Melbourne.

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The distraught family sat glued to television hoping for news and refused to speak to the media. Sunil’s father Ramanlal Patel asked the mediapersons to leave them alone in their moment of grief. Sunil’s brother Viral Patel said that the Melbourne police has sought DNA evidence to identify the bodies as they were charred beyond recognition.

“Today evening we went to the forensic laboratory in Gandhinagar and gave blood samples. Sunil had gone to Melbourne 10 months ago to do a course in cookery management. We had spoken to him on New Year eve to wish him,” said Viral. Sunil (24) had completed M Com from Nav Gujarat College before going to Australia.

In Vadodara, it was a weary day for the Prajapati and the Sadhu families as the news of the death of Deepak and Jignesh spread.

Family members said that they were yet to receive information from the Australian police about how the fire had started. Deepak and Jignesh’s friends informed the stunned families in Ahmedabad and Vadodara.

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Deepak’s brother Sunil, who works in Vadodara, said, “I got a call from one of Deepak’s friends at 11.30 pm on Wednesday night about the mishap. The news has not sunk in as yet as there are several demanding formalities to be completed.” He added that Deepak’s wife, Vanita, is studying in Australia and they were in constant touch with her. Vanita was a dependent on Deepak’s visa.

Deepak (32) and Jignesh (24) though from Vadodara, met in Australia, while they were both looking for a house. The former, a B Com student from M S University, was working for an accounting firm and the latter was pursuing his post graduation in horticulture. “They were good friends. Deepak had been there for three years and Jignesh for two,” said Jignesh’s elder brother Bharat Kumar Sadhu.

Prajapatis and Sadhus too visited the district collector’s office to understand the paperwork needed to bring the bodies back home.

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