Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 8: As many as 13 persons including a minor boy got injured in a cylinder explosion that took place in a house at Gorkha Nagar, in city outskirts of this winter capital of the State.
According to the reports, an LPG cylinder exploded with a bang early this morning in a 2-storey house at Gorkha Nagar, thus creating the panic. The house belongs to one Devraj son of Shalo Ram, resident of Gorkha Nagar.
With the blast, the fire spread in whole building and damaged everything in the house. The intensity of the blast can be gauzed from the fact that even a nearby house also came in contact with the fire.
Though fire tenders reached the locality in time yet due to congested lanes, the fire tenders could not reach close to the burning house due to which the firemen had to face tough time in dousing the flames.
“In total, 13 persons were injured, three of them seriously, in the mishap. Besides family members of the landlord, some of the members of those living in rented accommodation in the same house, including a young girl whose ‘Mehndi Raat’ (a marriage ritual) was scheduled to be held tonight also got injured.
As soon as Bagh-e-Bahu police got information, a police team led by SHO, police station Bagh-e-Bahu, Inspector Vijay Choudhary, reached the spot and along with locals initiated rescue operation and shifted all the injured to Government Medical College and Hospital, Jammu, where the condition of all the injured was stated to be stable till the last reports came in.
The injured have been identified as Rahul (20) son of Devraj, Lata Mangesh (38) wife of Kewal Krishan, Jai Mala (18) daughter of Datt Ram, Uttara Devi (23) daughter of Jawahar Lal, Jatinder Singh (24) son of Prem Nath, Jawahar Lal (49) son of Amar Nath, Vijayanta Devi (20) daughter of Radha Krishan, Rajkumar (34) son of Sardari Lal, Deepak Arora (40) son of Joginder Arora, Sweeti Devi (35) wife of Rakesh Kumar, Rohit (3) son of Rakesh Kumar, Akash Kumar and Vicky Kumar (40).
Later, former Minister and senior Congress leader, Raman Bhalla, also visited the spot, interacted with the family members of the victims and demanded the Government to provide special treatment and financial help to the victims to come out of the tragedy.