Opposition Alleges Safety Lapses After 9 Killed In Blast At Nagpur Explosives Factory

Police have registered a case against unidentified persons in connection with the blast at an explosives manufacturing factory in Maharashtra’s Nagpur district which claimed nine lives, officials said on Monday.

Search teams have recovered a number of body parts from the site at the Solar Industries India factory in Chakdoh area where the blast took place on Sunday, they said.

The body parts have been sent to a government hospital for post-mortem and DNA analysis to identify the victims, according to sources.

Opposition legislators in the state alleged lapses by the company in ensuring the safety of workers and demanded action against Industrial Safety Department officials.

The bodies of the victims were blown to pieces due to the severe intensity of the explosion and the building collapsed, an official from Kondhali police station said.

He said search teams have so far recovered more than 50 body parts from the site of the incident.

A case has been registered against unidentified persons under Indian Penal Code sections 304 (a) (causing death by negligence) and 286 (negligent conduct with respect to explosive substance) on a complaint of Kondhali police station’s assistant police inspector Pankaj Waghode.

“The accused persons would be identified during the investigation,” the official said.

The body parts recovered have been sent to the Government Medical College & Hospital (GMCH) here for post-mortem and DNA analysis to identify the victims, sources said.

After the panchnama, the body parts, kept in different packets, will be matched with the samples of relatives for identification.

The remains of the victims will be sent for forensic analysis before being handed over to the relatives, they said.

Work was on to remove debris from the blast site, a senior police official said.

Raising the issue in the state legislative council on Monday, opposition leader Ambadas Danve (Shiv Sena-UBT) demanded a report from the Nagpur district collector to fix accountability and demanded action against officials concerned from the Industrial Safety Department.

Danve, who visited the blast site, said the bodies were dismembered.

“Mandatory safety drills had not been conducted at the company and even officials from the industrial safety department were denied access to the premises,” he said.

Danve said workers at the factory were forced into early morning shifts after working late the previous night.

Congress MLC Shashikant Shinde said, “This isn’t the first time that an explosion occurred in the company. There were two such incidents in the past.” Referring to the Rs 20 lakh compensation announced by the company to the victims and Rs 5 lakh by the state government, Shinde wondered whether the government is placing a monetary value on the lives of innocent people.

“Around 4,000 workers are employed on a daily wage basis in the company on a meagre Rs 10,000 per month,” he said and demanded permanent employment for them.

Congress MLC Bhai Jagtap said while the minimum wage is Rs 12,000 in Maharashtra, the company was paying only Rs 10,500 per month to the workers.

He demanded that the services of workers be regularised.

Solar Industries India senior general manager Ashish Srivastava on Sunday said the incident occurred in the building where boosters used in coal mines are produced. “It took place when sealing work of the product was going on”.

The explosion occurred when the workers were engaged in production and packaging of Trinitrotoluene (TNT) chemical, a potent yellow explosive material widely used in military applications, a police official said.

The bodies of nine workers, who were in the 6 am to 2 pm shift, were blown to pieces following the blast. The single-floor facility also collapsed and the body parts were trapped under the debris, he said.

The high-intensity explosion was even heard by locals some kilometres away from the site.

After the incident, angry locals and relatives of workers had blocked the Amravati-Nagpur highway running along the site of the explosives manufacturing unit, demanding access to the premises so that they could see the bodies of their loved ones.

The police later tried to pacify them and the crowd was dispersed.

To locate the bodies, the police used drones above the accident site and deployed a bomb detection and disposal squad along with a forensic team for evidence collection, an official said.

The factory falls under the jurisdiction of the Petroleum & Explosive Safety Organisation (PESO) and its officials were conducting an inquiry into the incident, the police said.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde reached the site on Sunday night and spoke to the relatives of the victims. He took information about the incident from civic, police and company officials.

Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis also visited the blast site and spoke to relatives of the victims.

He said the state government will provide compensation of Rs 5 lakh each to the relatives of the dead, while the amount from the company would be Rs 20 lakh each.

Deputy CM Ajit Pawar also visited the spot on Sunday and said CM Eknath Shinde has ordered an inquiry into the incident.