Vandals set fire to a baby’s pram on Sunday night in Dundee in what the police have described as an “astonishingly reckless” crime.
The pram, which was sitting on the ground floor of a block of flats on Dura Street, was deliberately set on fire on Sunday night at around 7pm, with the close’s terrified residents evacuated.
Nobody was hurt in the fire but a five-year-old boy had to be taken to hospital after breathing in smoke.
The boy’s mother Menuka Kafle, said she could not see anything for the thick black smoke which had travelled up the communal stairwell.
“It was so frightening,” she said.
“I think we were the last people to get out of the block. We were coughing and trying to see the way out but it was difficult because of all the smoke.
“I couldn’t see where I was stepping to get down the stairs and I was trying to make sure my son, Dimanshu, was OK.
“I took him to hospital afterwards to get him checked over because I think he breathed in quite a lot of smoke. It was coming into the flat under the door.”
Police described the crime as “particularly low”.
A spokesperson for the Tayside division of Police Scotland said: “Fortunately, residents of the close managed to drag it outside, but not before it had caused considerable damage.
“Not only is it particularly low to destroy a child’s pushchair, but the potential danger posed to the residents of the close by this astonishingly reckless act was near unthinkable.”
Another resident of the block, Sandy Andrea, 33, who was looking after the pram for her friend who does not live in the close, said people were shouting from the street to get out.
She said: “My husband was on the phone when all of a sudden we heard people shouting from the street.
“I looked out and there were lots of people shouting there that there was a fire.
“It was very frightening. I grabbed a blanket and my daughter and run down the stairs.
“It is my friend’s pram. I keep it for her here sometimes.
“She is very upset. I don’t know how much it cost but she will have to buy a new one. Why would someone do that?”
Another resident, who did not wish to be named, said he saw two teenagers acting suspiciously shortly before the fire.
He said: “They were standing close to the pram but I didn’t know what they were doing.
“I went into my flat then the next thing I knew the pram was ablaze.
“I think someone has poured petrol or something similar onto it.”
