Twelve people have been arrested for the massive blaze at a
fireworks factory in Tamil Nadu's Sivakasi town that killed 38 people, police
said Thursday. A probe has also been ordered.
Among those arrested is Paul Pandi, who was running Om
Shakthi Fireworks on lease. But police are still searching for factory owner
Murugesan.
The state government also ordered a magisterial inquiry into
Wednesday's fire tragedy in the country's fireworks production hub, around 480
km from Chennai.
The inquiry will find out why the unit was running when its
licence was cancelled a day before the accident.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa issued the probe
order after meeting ministers and officials to find out ways to stop such
accidents from recurring.
"I have ordered a magisterial inquiry into the
operation of the firecracker unit when its licence was cancelled and also
reasons for the accident," she said in a statement.
The chief minister said Petroleum and Explosives Safety
Organisation in Nagpur had issued a licence to the factory in 2006 and
officials of the Explosives Control Department had inspected it.
The unit's licence was cancelled Tuesday over excess
stocking of chemicals, employing a large workforce and encroaching upon safety
areas and for other lapses, she said.
She said the district collector of Virudhunagar (where
Sivakasi is located) had received the cancellation order's copy Wednesday.
She ordered the district collector to inspect all
firecracker units in the district.
The chief minister also gave a grant of Rs.4.5 crore for
upgradation of the government hospital in Sivakasi and for setting up a burn
unit there.
More than 75 people were injured in the explosion and fire
that tore through one of the biggest fireworks factories in Tamil Nadu.
"The death toll could have been higher if police had
not prevented people from entering the unit," P. Raja, a police inspector
in Vachakarapatti in Virudhunagar, told IANS over the telephone.
He said most of those who died were bystanders injured by
flying bricks and other materials due the intensity of the blast.
The blast was so powerful that more than 40 of the 48 sheds
in the unit were destroyed, catching workers and bystanders unawares, police
said.
A massive fire soon engulfed the entire factory because a
huge amount of raw materials and firecrackers were being readied for the coming
festive season.
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