Panel under chief secy, DGP to find firecracker factories in residential areas: Punjab CM

Firecracker factories should not be allowed in a crowded place said Punjab CM Amarinder Singh after a blast had occurred where 23 people were killed and 27 injured in a firecracker factory site. Also, a committee under the chief secretary and the DGP has been set up to identify firecracker factories in residential areas across the state so that those could be shut down.

Batala (Punjab): Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh announced on Friday setting up of a committee under the chief secretary and the DGP to identify firecracker factories in residential areas across the state so that those could be shut down.

He said this after visiting the firecracker factory site where 23 people were killed and 27 injured in a powerful explosion on Wednesday. The chief minister also met the injured at the civil hospital to inquire about their health.

"I can assure you I will put a committee headed by the chief secretary and the director-general of police to carry out inspections across Punjab to find such factories and we will shut them down. We will not allow these to carry on," he told reporters here.

The chief minister also said that a magisterial inquiry has already been ordered in the incident and its report would come out soon.

"I want to know through this inquiry how this (blast) happened," Singh said. In his visit, the chief minister was accompanied by three ministers --Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Sukhjinder Randhawa and Aruna Chaudhary and Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar.

Asserting that firecracker factories should not be allowed in crowded places, Singh said an inquiry was ordered into a blast that had occurred in the same place in January 2017, before the Congress came to power in the state.

"An inquiry was ordered at that time also. What happened to that? Why did nothing come out? How were they (factory owners) allowed to carry on (with the operations)," he posed.

To a question on the explosion at an agricultural field near Kaler village in Tarn Taran on Wednesday evening, the chief minister said, "Three people were digging a pit and were trying to make a bomb in a bottle by mixing some chemicals. It exploded."

"We will find out who were making these bombs and for whom," he said.

Two persons were killed and one was seriously injured in the Tarn Taran blast and police have not ruled out a terror angle in this incident.