Short circuit at petrol pump caused Jammu blast claimed by terror group: Police

Jammu East Dy SP Zaheer Abbas Jafri said the petrol pump owner told the police that the loud noise was caused due to a short circuit in the underground power board

JAMMU: An explosion took place inside a petrol pump in the Narwal area of Jammu on Tuesday morning, leading to panic in the area, police said.

Jammu East Dy SP Zaheer Abbas Jafri said t a team from the Indian Oil Corporation was also requested to make its assessment. (Twitter/ANI)

Police said the blast shattered window panes at the petrol pump and the adjoining branch of a private bank. There were no customers at the petrol pump at the time of the blast, and no one was injured.

As news of the explosion spread, an offshoot of the Lashkare-e-Taiba rushed to claim responsibility for the attack.

The petrol pump owner later told the police that the loud noise that many mistook for a terrorist attack was caused due to a short circuit in the underground power board, possibly due to overnight rains, said Jammu East deputy superintendent of police (Dy SP) Zaheer Abbas Jafri.

Jafri, the sub-divisional police officer of the area, said: “The blast occurred on Tuesday morning at a petrol pump, near Narwal Mandi around 10.50 am. According to the fuel station owner, a short circuit in the electricity board caused it.”

He said that a team from the Indian Oil Corporation was also requested to make its assessment.

The police officer added that prima facie, there was no terror angle in the incident and no one was at the petrol pump when the incident took place.

A woman who worked in the private bank said she heard two explosions. “Initially, we thought that some militancy-related incident has taken place. We panicked… but then came to know that there was a short circuit or leakage in the pipes of the fuel station,” she said. The area had seen back-to-back blasts on January 21 that coincided with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s foot march passing through the union territory.

As initial media reports, unclear about the cause, referred to loud noise as a mysterious blast, there were posts on social media sites on behalf of United Liberation Front. The proxy group, described by the police as an offshoot of LeT, claimed responsibility for the ‘blast’.

In its message with a photo of the petrol pump, the group asked the authorities to not fool the public and claimed that it will turn the city into a “battle ground”. A lot of ‘mysterious’ things are going to happen now onwards. Count the numbers…#ULF”,” the social media post said

Police officers said it wasn’t unusual for such groups to claim responsibility. “They do it for propaganda,” he said.