Indian police hunt for explosives’ owner after deadly blast

NEW DELHI — Police were hunting Sunday for the owner of an illegal cache of explosives blamed for a massive blast in a crowded restaurant in central India that left more than 80 people dead.

The explosion, one of the worst such accidents in recent years, on Saturday morning tore through the restaurant building complex in central Madhya Pradesh state, packed with office workers and schoolchildren having breakfast.

Scores of labourers waiting at a bus stand outside the complex were also hit with shooting debris from the blast that destroyed neighbouring buildings in the town of Petlawad.

"The official death toll is 88, but the actual number may be higher, nearly 100. That will be confirmed soon," senior Jhabua district police official Seema Alava told AFP by phone.

Some 100 people were also injured, the official said, as rescue workers wrapped up their search for more victims buried in the steel and concrete wreckage. 

A witness, Saurabh Jain, told the Hindustan Times newspaper's website that the restaurant was packed as normal when the blast occurred. 

"People were screaming and shouting. Some were crying, 'I'm dying, I'm dying, please help me'," the 23-year-old said.

Sharmila Kataria, 40, described a "horrible sight" in the aftermath of the explosion.

"When my eyes adjusted to [the] rising dust, all I could see was bloodied bodies and body parts strewn over a large area," she told the website.

Alava said police initially blamed a gas cylinder in the restaurant for the main explosion. But it now appeared gelatine sticks and other explosives illegally stored elsewhere in the complex accidently detonated, triggering a chain reaction, she said. 

"It was the other way around. The explosives in the building exploded first... the extreme heat sparked a... chemical reaction and then that was it. Everything went off after that," Alava said.

She said police were searching for a suspect known as Rajendra Kasawa, who has been on the run with his brothers since Saturday, to question him over his deadly stockpile of sticks, detonators and urea.

Kasawa had a licence for the materials used for digging wells and in the construction and mining industries. But Alava said they were stored "in an unauthorised way in a residential area".

A local contractor, Kasawa rented space in the building from where he operated his business helping farmers, according to locals.

"We were up almost all night. We will find him, it is only a matter of time," Alava said, adding that he faces charges including culpable homicide.

Angry crowds 

The hunt came as Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan visited the site in Petlawad, 950 kilometres south of New Delhi, and vowed to bring those responsible to justice.

"Those guilty will not be spared at any cost," Chouhan told the crowds at the blast site, adding he has ordered a judicial inquiry into the tragedy.

But a group of angry relatives and neighbours heckled and surrounded Chouhan, demanding better enforcement of laws against owners of such explosives who often work as contractors in the district's manganese and bauxite mines.

Television footage on Saturday showed scores of people and rescue workers using their barehands to shift mangled heaps of steel and concrete of the ruined buildings.

Photographs also showed corpses covered in dust and ash lying in the streets alongside the twisted wreckage of burned-out vehicles.

Workers collected firewood and lit pyres that billowed black smoke into the sky as mass cremations of dozens of people were carried out late Saturday.