Batala explosion: Victims slam Gurdaspur administration over laxity

BATALA : The locals have squarely blamed the police and the civil administration for being allegedly hand in glove with the owners of firecracker factory and turning a Nelson's eye while Batala in Punjab's Gurdaspur district was sitting on a ticking time bomb.

“Had the Gurdaspur administration taken preventives steps, neither the incident would have happened nor would I have lost my wife and son,” Shishpal Singh said on Thrusday - a day after an explosion claimed 23 lives and injured several others.
Shishpal Singh, who lost his wife Ramanpreet Kaur and young son Pahul, said his wife and son were going to market on a scooter.
“When I heard the blast, I called on her phone but she didn’t pick up. I thought she would have gone for marketing and will come back soon,” he said. After one and a half hours, his father went towards the blast site and identified his daughter-in-law’s scooter.
“Panicky, we reached there and after sometime found both of them were buried under the rubble of a wall,” he said.
While lashing at the Gurdaspur civil and police administration, Shishpal said about two years ago, a blast in the same factory had claimed one life. “Since then, we have given several representations and complaints to administration, but no action was taken against the owner,” he alleged.
Gurdev Singh whose relative Hardev Singh was injured in the incident and was under medical treatment at Civil Hospital Batala said that Hardev had gone to buy firecrackers from the factory for ‘nagar kirtan’ but after the blast happened, he rushed out of the factory and fell in the ‘nullaha’.
Rajinder Singh, owner of a nearby motor workshop, who was injured in the blast said the blast was so powerful that he was thrown out of the workshop premises with its waves. “We had already filed a court case against the factory owner, but the administration was hand in glove with the factory owner.”
Meanwhile, as many as five unauthorised firecracker manufacturing factories were sealed in Qadian on the instructions of Gurdaspur administration.