KALMESHWAR Police have registered a case of culpable homicide in connection with the deadly explosion at SBL Energy Limited in Raulgaon village and arrested 11 accused persons, including Directors of the compnay, so far. The blast, which occurred between 6 am and 7 am on Sunday in Building No 16 (B) of the explosives manufacturing unit, killed 19 workers and injured 24 others. According to Kalmeshwar Police, preliminary inspection reports submitted by the Directorate of Industrial Safety and Health (DISH) and the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO) found serious violations of safety rules by the company. Based on the findings, a case has been registered under Section 105 (culpable homicide), Section 25(A)(B) (acts endangering life or personal safety of others) and Section 288 (negligent conduct with regard to explosives) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita. Nine company officials have been arrested.

 

They are: Chandrashekhar Brijmohan Rajwad (50), Vice-President, a resident of 502 Rachnaji Apartment, Ambazari, Nagpur; SandeepHimmatlalSolanki (62), Senior General Manager, a residentof64–65MaharanaBuilder, Katol Road, Nagpur; Pradeep RaghunathSharma (57),General Manager, a resident of Plot No. 57,JayavishnahartaSociety,Katol Road,Nagpur;RoshanBhaskrao Raut (43), Production Manager, aresidentofDattawadi,Nagpur; Neelkanth Thaniram Dongre (48),ProductionManager(training fordetonator fillingand framing), a resident of Vasant Apartment, Dabha, Nagpur; Pankaj Ramnaresh Pandey (32), Production Supervisor, a resident of Plot No. 303, Besa, Nagpur; Sudhakar Ramesh Uparkar (43), Loading Supervisor, a resident of Kohli, Taluka Kalmeshwar; Rajendra Devrao Pardhi (42),In-charge of Building16(A),aresidentofDorli (Bhingare), Kalmeshwar, and VilasAnkushMalve(45),responsible for Building 16(B), a resident of Chitnis Nagar, Nagpur. All the accused were taken into custodyandproducedbeforethe court, and remanded to six days of police custody. Intheaftermath,bodiesof victims were brought to the Government Medical College and Hospital in Nagpur. Officials said, many bodies were completely charred, while remains of three victims arrived in bundled form, making identification difficult. Theexplosionoccurredshortly after work began in the unit that manufactures gunpowder and detonators used in mining. Around 35 workerswerepresent in the department at the time. The powerful blast was heard acrossnearbyvillagesandreportedly caused part of the unit to collapse, followed by a massive fire and thick smoke. Police said, further investigation is underway and more arrests are likely. 

 

One more succumbs to injuries; toll reaches 19 WITH the death of worker Ranjana Uttam Ghagre (35) on Monday morning, the death toll in the blast has risen to 19. She was seriously injured in Sunday’s explosion. Earlier, 18 workers had died in the incident. 

 

Rakesh Tiwari, Ravi Kamre arrested after meeting RAKESH Tiwari and Ravi Kamra who also are the directors of the company came to the meeting of Guardian Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Monday morning. After the meeting, both were arrested by the police. 

 

CHIEF Minister Devendra Fadnavis after visiting the workers injured in blast SBL Energy Limited, on Monday, said, time has come for introduction of automation in manufacturing explosive, given the high risk involved in the production. Fadnavis was of the view that while humans can work in non-critical areas, machinery needs to be thought off where fuse or final filling of highly explosive stuff is carried out. With demand is rising for high intensity explosives in the market, the manufacturers and regulators need to sit together and work out measures to steer the industry towards more safer practices. Though theregulationof explosive manufacturing industry is under purview of Central Government, State will study the issue in depth as the aim is to avoid such incidents in future. Fadnavis earlierreached city from Mumbai in the evening and visited the private hospital where the injured workers are undergoing treatment. As happenswithburn victims, the doctors, he said, are monitoring the health aspects of the injured and company is bearing the cost of treatment. Interactingwithnewspersons at the hospital, Chief Minister also felt that there is a need to revisit the rules governing the industry engaged in manufacture of high end explosives, as currentregulationswereframed in 2008. With passage of time, the new explosive are more powerful and utilisation of more intense material is being done.

 

Therefore,officialsof the PESO and other supervising agency needs to take a critical look as loss of human life in repetitivefashiondoesnothold good.The protocol needs to be further tightened and defended the officials saying after last such incident at an explosive company, all other units were audited. However, there is the need to standardise the practices, train the workers needs more intense training and without doubt automationisinevitable to prevent such incidents in future, he added. Katol MLA Charan Singh Thakur,local officials alsowere also present during the Chief Minister’s visit