The 11 charred bodies lay in rows on the floor of the burnt house as the only survivor of the arson, Bimalendra Shushil, narrated the horror.

The incident occurred when about 20 robbers raided the house of Tajendra Lal Shushil at Shilpara of Banshkhali upazila at around 12:30am.

The robbers barged into the house, breaking the front door.

As the panicked family took shelter upstairs locking the wooden door, the robbers looted whatever they found on the ground floor.

"The robbers could not break the first floor door, which enraged them. They started shouting at the family members, threatening them with dire consequences unless they did not open door," Bimalendra, the only surviving son of Tajendra and a village physician, told The Daily Star.

"We suddenly heard a gunshot and to our horror found smoke curling through the wooden floor at around 12:50am," he said.

"Some 15 minutes later, as we did not hear the robbers anymore, we opened the door to see what's happening downstairs. All we saw is flames leaping wildly," Bimalendra went on.

"I jumped out of the window and hid in the paddy field," he said. "I was too frightened to know what was going on there."

When the fire died down, he went to the house and found his 11 family members dead. They are Tejendra Lal Shushil, 70, his wife Bakul Shil, 65, their second son Anil Kanti Shushil, 42, and Anil's family including his wife Smriti Rani Shil, 30, and three daughters - Rumi Shil, 11, Sonia Shil, 7, and 4-day-old Kartik Shil, Tejendra's three nieces and daughter of Shachindra Lal Shushil -- Babuti Shil, 25, Anny Shil, 15, and Bakul Shil's brother-in-law of Debendra Shil, 75.

Bimalendra filed a case with Banshkhali Police station, but no-one was arrested.

Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, now in Makkah to perform Umrah, expressed shock at the killings and directed the authorities to deal with the culprits.

She said people responsible for the incident must be found out immediately and handed over to the law-enforcers.

After the incident, Home Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury went to the village and ordered setting up of a police camp. He also asked police to immediately arrest the killers.

Leader of the Opposition Sheikh Hasina condemned the carnage as a grisly expression of primeval bestiality and demanded exemplary punishment to the guilty.

In a statement last night, she said the killing of 11 people of a family of 12 was a glaring example of the helplessness of people at the hands of whom she called the armed hoodlums of the BNP-Jamaat coalition.

She alleged that the bloodbath was part of a blueprint, mapped out by the present government immediately after taking office, to persecute the minority communities.