Ottawa:
An Indian-origin couple and their teenage daughter died last week in a “suspicious” fire that destroyed their home in the Canadian province of Ontario, police said Friday.
A fire engulfed a home at Big Sky Way and Van Kirk Drive in Brampton on March 7, according to a Peel Police news release.
After the fire was extinguished, investigators found suspected human remains in the destroyed home, but the number of deaths could not be determined at the time.
The charred remains were identified Friday as those of three family members: 51-year-old Rajiv Warikoo; his wife, 47-year-old Shilpa Kotha; and their 16-year-old daughter, Mahek Warikoo.
According to police, they lived at the address before the fire.
Peel police officer Taryn Young said Friday that the fire was being treated as suspicious, news station CTV reported.
“We are currently investigating this with our homicide bureau, and we consider this to be as suspicious as the Ontario Fire Marshal has ruled this fire was not accidental,” the report quoted Young as saying.
“There's not much left to it,” Young said when asked about the possible cause of the fire.
“As a fire chief, when I look at something like this, I'm sure it's very difficult when there's not much left to see. But we're exhausting all options,” she said.
The deceased family's neighbor, Kenneth Yousaf, said the family had lived on the streets for 15 years and he had never noticed any problems with them.
Yousaf said he was informed of the fire last week by a family member, who heard a large “bang.” “When we came out, the house was on fire. So sad. Within a few hours, everything was to the ground,” the report quoted Yousaf as saying.
In a news release, police said they were continuing to investigate the deaths of the three family members and urged anyone with information to come forward.
“The circumstances surrounding the house fire remain the focus of an active investigation, and anyone with information or video footage (dashcam or otherwise) is urged to contact homicide detectives,” police said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)