3 CHARRED TO DEATH IN CHHATTISGARH

window for bursting of firecrackers. Only green firecrackers, which have 30 per cent less emissions, can be burnt.

Bomb disposal squads and fire department personnel were scrambled after several boxes of crackers dumped on a vacant plot in Punjab’s Jalandhar exploded, shattering window panes and triggering panic among residents on Diwali night, police said.

Eyewitness told police that pellet-like things scattered in the air after the explosions.

A police investigation has ruled out the possibility of any terror angle. At least five shops were gutted when a fire broke out in a market area in Maharashtra’s Sangli city, a fire brigade official said, adding no casualty was reported.

Four to five fire tenders were pressed into service and they took around two hours to douse the flames, he said.

“It is not yet clear whether the blaze was caused due to fire crackers,” the official said. In Firozabad, Uttar Pradesh, at least seven persons were injured when two rival groups opened over a dispute on burning crackers, police said on Monday.

Three people in a Chhattisgarh village were charred to death when a shop in which firecrackers were stored caught fire, police said on Monday.

The tragic incident took place in the village of Makdi in Kondagaon district in south Bastar region in Chhattisgarh late on Sunday night.

According to Kondagaon police, a local grocery shop owner Kashi Sen used to sell firecrackers for which he was granted licence, on the occasion of Diwali. He along with two of his friends, identified as Balram Netam and Shivlal Shrimali, slept inside the shop on Sunday night after it was closed.

Fire broke out suddenly trapping all of them in the shop. Later, their charred bodies were recovered by police. Preliminary probe suggested that the three locked themselves inside the shop leading to the mishap.