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Five children killed in crude bomb blast in Allahabad
Five children were killed and six injured on Wednesday when a crude bomb went off in a slum a few hundred metres from the Kareli police station in Allahabad.
Five children were killed and six injured on Wednesday when a crude bomb went off in a slum a few hundred metres from the Kareli police station in Allahabad.
Union home ministry sources ruled out a terror angle, but an anti-terrorism squad team and forensic experts were sent to Allahabad to probe the incident.
The six injured persons — three children and as many women — were admitted to various hospitals in the city and their condition remains critical, said Allahabad SP (crime) Arun Kumar Pande.
The blast occurred around 3pm in a narrow lane between two rows of shanties in the slum inhabited mainly by trolley-pullers and ragpickers.
The SP said the blast was “prima facie the result of ragpickers fiddling with a crude bomb, not necessarily a very powerful one, that might have been left abandoned in a garbage heap”. He dismissed locals’ claim that an unidentified person had hurled the bomb.
Residents of the slum claimed that the blast could be a handiwork of a construction company which is allegedly interested in acquiring the land now occupied by squatters.
Hotel waiter Nur Alam, who was eating in his shanty when the bomb went off, said, “We all ran out. The lane was scattered with lifeless bodies and blood.”
Another resident Sabiha Mohani said the impact of the blast rattled the window panes. “My daughter clung on to me tightly. She was so scared.”
Meanwhile, the district administration has announced compensation for those killed and injured in the blast. According to the district information office, a compensation of Rs 1 lakh has been announced for family members of each of the deceased, Rs 50,000 for those with serious injuries and Rs 20,000 for those with minor wounds.
With inputs from agencies
