| Submit your comments on this article |
| India-Pakistan |
| Police hunt for suspect behind India restaurant explosion |
| 2015-09-14 |
| [DAWN] Police were hunting Sunday for a suspect who illegally stored explosives in a restaurant building in central India that sparked a deadly blast, killing 88 people and injuring nearly 100. The blast occurred in the town of Petlawad in Madhya Pradesh state's Jhabua district Saturday morning when many office workers and schoolchildren were having breakfast in the restaurant and scores of labourers waited at a crowded bus stand near the building. "The official corpse count is 88, but the actual number may be higher, nearly 100. That will be confirmed soon," senior Jhabua district police official Seema Alava told AFP by phone, adding that about 100 others were maimed and rescue operations had been wrapped up. She said police earlier thought the kaboom was triggered by a gas cylinder, which detonated explosives that were stored illegally in the restaurant building and amplified its impact, destroying neighbouring buildings and vehicles. "It was the other way around. The explosives in the building went kaboom!first... extreme heat sparked a urea nitrate chemical reaction and then that was it. Everything went off after that," Alava said. She said a suspect, Rajendra Kasawa, who has been on the run with his brothers since Saturday, had illegally stored urea, gelatine sticks, detonators and other explosives used for digging wells, construction and mining in a warehouse in the building. Although Kasawa had a license for the material, Alava said he stored them "in an unauthorised way in a residential area" and therefore, been booked for culpable homicide and unlawful possession of explosives. "We were up almost all night. We will find him, it is only a matter of time," she said. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan visited Petlawad, 950 kilometres south of New Delhi, on Sunday. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 "and then that was it". Well, and there you have it. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2015-09-14 12:11 |
| #1 Struggling to NOT call it a IED event. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2015-09-14 10:25 |