Rajib Bhattachariya, a physician of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University’s neurosurgery department, has died after suffering fatal burns in a fire fuelled by hand sanitiser at their home in Dhaka’s Hatirpool.

The 36-year-old doctor breathed his last at Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery on Tuesday morning.

His wife Anushka Bhattacharya, 32, registrar of ophthalmology department at Central Medical College in Shyamoli, is now undergoing treatment at the hospital with 20 percent burn injuries.

The doctor couple was burnt in what police say was fire fuelled by hand sanitiser at their on Wednesday morning.

The fire erupted when Rajib was pouring hand sanitiser from one bottle to another in their second-storey flat on a building near Eastern Plaza.

Some sanitiser spilled at that time and fire from mosquito coil or some other source sparked a flame.

Anushka was injured when she tried to rescue her husband.

The couple’s 5-year-old daughter has been staying with Rajib’s parents in Cumilla for several weeks apparently because Rajib and Anushka feared the girl would get infected from them amid the coronavirus pandemic.