Thursday 27 December 2012

Bodies of 8 victims of fireworks unit blast cremated


Bodies of eight victims of Parakkallur fireworks unit explosion were cremated separately in their villages on Wednesday with high police security to avoid any untoward incidents.

"While bodies of Shanthi Saravanan (40), owner of the fireworks unit and her son S Suriya (10) were cremated in Parakkallur village, K Sivagami (40), K Deepa (12), Kesavan (13), Thangam (50), Eswari (35) and Vijaya (33) were cremated at Vellar and Senkattur Pirivu Valavu villages respectively," said V Mahalingam, local village head for 18 settlements in the locality, including Parakkallur.

"We were planning to cremate all the victims at one place but relatives of the deceased wanted to be cremated in their villages. So, we cremated them in their own villages after performing final rituals," Mahalingam added.

"All the bodies were handed over to the relatives on Wednesday afternoon after the post-mortem conducted at the Salem government hospital," sources said.

"Two police constables were deployed for each body until the crematorium," said a police officer.

Meanwhile, Salem district superintendent of police Ashwin M Kotnis visited the blast spot along with the deputy controller of explosives from Vellore district.

Ashwin said, "The deputy controller of explosives conducted a detailed investigation at the spot. He confirmed that the explosion had occurred only when the workers were drying the gun powder in the open place near the unit. Fire sparks might have erupted at that time and spread to the entire unit. One of the deceased, Deepa Kuppusamy, also confirmed this in her dying declaration to the Mettur judicial magistrate."

The SP said there were only six workers, including Shanthi, Sivagami, Thangam, Palaniappan, Eswari and Vijaya, working at the manufacturing unit on Tuesday morning. Around 12pm, the children Deepa, Suriya, Ammu, Sathiesh, Pavithra, Kesavan, Pasupathi and Manoj Kumar came to the unit to give lunch for their parents. The children were playing near the place where the gun powder was dried when the explosion took place, Ashwin said.

"This was informed by Deepa to the magistrate. Even we thought that the children were working there," the SP added.

Thursday 27 December 2012

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/coimbatore/Bodies-of-8-victims-of-fireworks-unit-blast-cremated/articleshow/17775700.cms

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