A powerful blast in a residential building in Bhagalpur in Bihar killed 16 people. The explosion was caused in the material kept for making ‘desi bomb’.
A massive explosion in a residential building in Bihar’s Bhagalpur on Thursday (March 3) night killed 16 people. The building Mohammad Azad is still absconding.
Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG, Bhagalpur Range) Sujit Kumar had told press that the blast took place due to the presence of country-made bombs, gun powder and illegal firecrackers in the building.
“Prima facie investigation shows it was firecracker and desi bomb manufacturing unit. Forensic samples are being taken. The police are identifying the bodies,” he had said.
The explosion was so powerful that three adjacent building were also damaged and there were cracks in the near-by buildings. As a precautionary measure, the district administration has ordered demolition of the damaged buildings.
Mohammad Azad, who is the owner of the house, visited the place soon after the explosion but is absconding since then.
A Special Investigation Team (SIT) was formed to investigate the case. The SIT arrested two brothers of Azad, Mohammad Solzer and Mohammad Shahzad.
The police suspect that Azad was aware about the storage of large amount of gunpowder in the house. The initial investigation has revealed that an illegal firecracker unit was also running in the same premises.
Bihar Director General of Police (DGP) SK Singhal told reporters, “Primary investigation has suggested that an unlicensed firecracker manufacturing unit was being run from the rented house. The ATS will probe the matter. FSL samples are being collected…Gun powder and iron nails, used in making crude bombs and firecrackers, have been seized from the spot.”
The building, where the explosion took place, is barely 100 metres from the police station. The Station House Officer (SHO) of the local Tatarpur police station, Sanjay Kumar Sudhanu, has been suspended for dereliction of duty.
This is not the first time such an incident has happened at the same place. At least three such incidents had happened in the past in 2002, 2008 and 2018.
In June last year, a similar explosion had happened in a masjid in Navtolia in Bihar’s Banka district
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