Islamabad: A fire caused by an electrical short circuit killed six siblings as they slept in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Sunday, police said.
The fire broke out in the early morning at a two-storey house in the Shad Bagh area of Lahore while the family was asleep, local police station official Mohammad Basharat told AFP.
"When rescue services arrived, all six children, three boys and three girls, were found dead," Basharat said.
The mother was rescued alive but wounded and has been hospitalised, he said, adding that the father was not at home when the fire broke out.
Lahore`s senior administration official Mohammad Usman confirmed the incident and said that the victims were between seven and 16 years old.
Three of the children suffocated, he said, while the other three died of their burns.
Lahore is the second largest city of Pakistan and capital of the politically influential wheat bowl province of Punjab.
In December last year a fire erupted in a busy market in Lahore that killed 13 people.
