A four-day-old baby boy whose mother died of burns hours after giving birth to him in an autorickshaw while she was being rushed to a hospital is facing a bleak future with the family, reeling under poverty, saying it would be tough for them to look after the baby and the father, who has been living separately of late, not even attending the funeral of his wife.

Twenty-six-year-old Sarika Kamble, who suffered nearly 80 per cent burns while cooking at her hutment on Thursday night, died seven hours after giving birth to her fifth child.

At the funeral the next day, Sarika’s brothers lit the pyre as her husband failed to turn up. He had been living separately following a family quarrel. “Now who will look after the five children? We ourselves are fighting for survival,” says Sarika’s father, 65-year-old Tukaram Jogdand.

Sarika’s sister Rani Ohal says Sarika was cooking on a “choolah” in the verandah of the house when her saree caught fire. “It was pitch dark as electricity had failed. A piece of burning wood fell on Sarika’s saree. Before she could realise what had happened, Sarika was in flames. Being nine months pregnant, she could not get up and move away fast. I rushed to get water to douse the flames and when I returned she was slumped on the choolah itself,” says Rani.

Sarika’s brother called an autorickshaw. The family had a tough time lifting the injured Sarika and putting her in the vehicle in the narrow bylanes of Dalvinagar in Chinchwad where the incident occurred. “The moment we tried to lift her, Sarika’s scream unnerved us,” says Santosh Jogdand, her younger brother.

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