Desperate battle to save brothers in Huddersfield house fire - pictures

May 7 2009 by Sam Casey, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Rashcliffe Hill Road

BRAVE builders battled in vain to save two young brothers from a fire at their Huddersfield home.

Our picture, taken by a neighbour, shows smoke billowing from the window of the terraced property at Rashcliffe Hill Road in Thornton Lodge yesterday afternoon.

Just minutes earlier, labourers who are building more houses at the Sadeh Lok housing association development, had used one of their own ladders to try to get in through an upstairs window.

But they were forced back by the fire.

Minutes later firefighters pulled the boys, aged two and four, from the back of the house.

They were later pronounced dead at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.

The builders were too traumatised to speak after the incident.

One was believed to have been taken ill after inhaling smoke as he tried to get into the house.

Another said: “We have young children ourselves, so it’s not something we want to talk about at the moment.

“It was hard enough giving statements to the police.”

It is believed the boys, named locally as Sohail and Junaid Hussain, were in a bedroom upstairs while their mother, aged in her 20s and heavily pregnant with her fifth child, was downstairs drinking tea with a group of other people.

She is believed to be Nazir Akhtar.

She was alerted by the builders banging on the front door.

It is believed others had to stop her from making a frantic attempt to save her sons.

Her uncle, Mohammed Sabir, was outside the house yesterday.

He said: “I am very sad.”

The boys’ two older brothers, believed to be aged five and six, were at school when the fire broke out shortly after 1pm.