Blast at Bihar illegal fireworks unit kills five of family, 6 injured

PATNA: Five of a family were killed and six others injured after an explosion in an illegal fireworks manufacturing unit in Bihar’s Saran district on Sunday. The blast around noon was so powerful that the two-storey house at Khodaibag village, in which firecrackers were being readied, collapsed. The explosion also caused partial damage to two other houses in the neighbourhood.
“In fact, it was a cooking gas cylinder in the house that exploded after coming in contact with fire that started in some crackers,” a witness told police. The deceased have been identified as Amina Khatoon (55), her two sons Mulazim (35) and Sabir Ali (22), Mulazim’s wife Shabana (32) and Mulazim’s nephew (sister’s son) Shahjad (5), Saran SP Santosh Kumar told TOI over the phone.
The SP said Shahjad was a native of Shitalpur village and had come to Khodaibag to visit his maternal grandmother. Three of the six injured have received grievous injuries, the SP said, adding that they have been referred to Patna for better treatment, while the other three are undergoing treatment at Sadar Hospital, Chhapra. He said as per initial investigation, the accident occurred after some crackers caught fire.
The SP said two separate teams of forensic experts and bomb disposal squad had reached the incident site from Muzaffarpur. A team of anti-terror squad (ATS) from Patna also reached the village, the SP said.
The victims ran a cycle-repair shop in front of their house and were engaged in making firecrackers and selling them to children through street vending. The SP clarified that the house where the explosion took place was not a cracker-manufacturing factory. It belonged to a family and some of its members were engaged in cracker-making work.