Batala: A day after the deadly blast at a firecracker factory in Batala, the police revealed that the factory operated illegally. Tempers ran high at the government hospital with the victims' families demanding strict action against the concerned officials. Twenty-three people were killed and several others injured in the explosion, on Wednesday afternoon, at the factory set amidst homes and shops in Batala, a Gurdaspur district.

Opinderjit Singh, Senior Superintendent of Police in Batala, told the media, "The factory was working illegally. I did not come to know about it earlier. Otherwise, it would have been shut. We are checking the licenses of all factories in the city."

At the civil hospital, some slogan shouting relatives demanded action against senior officials for failing to shut down the factory despite repeated complaints from the residents of Guru Ram Das Colony on Jalandhar Road. A protester said, "What inquiry will the government conduct now? A case of murder should be registered against the top officials for allowing the factory to run illegally."

The Punjab government has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the blast that brought down the factory that was split into four units by its owners, blew the roofs off some adjacent buildings and damaged vehicles parked nearby. Local residents said the explosion was heard kilometres away. They said a blast at the same factory in January 2017 killed a worker and injured three others. They also claimed that several complaints were submitted to the administration in the past seeking the closure of the factory.

Also read: 23 Killed, 27 Hurt in Punjab Factory Blast; CM Amarinder Singh Orders Inquiry

The victims, on Wednesday's explosion, included factory workers, members of the owners' families and some passerby, said the officials. The police said, on Thursday, that apart from the 23 dead, there were 18 injured in the blast. Seven severely injured were referred to the Amritsar Medical College.

Local residents said that after the original factory owner Satnam Singh's death, it was split into four units run by his sons, Jaspal Singh, Paramjit Singh, Harbhajan Singh and Ravil Singh. Satnam Singh had a permit to run the factory. This was not renewed after his death by the administration, police said. The production units-cum-shops were in the front and the families lived at the back, according to Baljit Singh, who knows the owners. He also said the owners stocked raw materials in large quantities ahead of festivals like Dussehra, Gurpurab and Diwali, and the firecrackers were delivered not only in Punjab but in Himachal Pradesh too.

After the 2017 blast, the owners had agreed to shift the factory elsewhere and only maintain their offices in the busy locality that also houses a gurudwara, a temple and a private school, the local residents said. However, just a few months later, firecrackers were being manufactured again at the same location, they added.

Raghubir Singh Sandhu, Batala Bar Association president, who stays in the same locality, said no action was taken on his complaints. He said, "Along with other residents of the locality, I requested the administration after the 2017 incident to shift this firecracker factory outside the city but all in vain."

Vipul Ujwal, Gurdaspur Deputy Commissioner, said that 19 bodies have been identified so far. Five of the dead were from the families of the owners. They were identified as Surinder Singh, Paramjit Singh, Onkar Singh, Vikramjit Singh and Rajinderpal Singh. 11 others worked at the factory. The police identified them as Shyamlal, Mukha, Balkar Singh, Lakha Singh, Balkar, Tarlok Singh, Sonu, Manpreet Singh, Alia, Vinay and Lalli. Three local residents – Bimala Rani, Ramandeep Kaur and Pahulpreet Singh also died in the blast.

Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Punjab's Rural Development and Panchayat Minister, met the injured at a local hospital on Wednesday night. The state government has announced an ex-gratia payment of Rs 2 lakh each to the relatives of those killed and Rs 50,000 for each of the seven severely injured.

Partap Singh Bajwa, Congress Rajya Sabha MP, urged, on Thursday, the Punjab government to register cases against the officials responsible for the tragedy. If the responsibility of any official is not fixed, this kind of incidents will continue to happen in the future as well, he added.

(PTI)

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