Fire officials, police can't agree if 20 gas cylinders behind blaze were in chawl or not
Fire officials, police can't agree if 20 gas cylinders behind blaze were in chawl or not
Twenty gas cylinders stacked in a small room nearly spelt disaster for thousands of people in Dhankawadi. A gas leak followed by a low-intensity blast and fire in a chawl on Saturday night brought the fire brigade to the spot and led to the discovery of the illegally stocked cylinders.
The police, however, said the cylinders were not in the room but in a vehicle parked outside, and dismissed the incident as an accident.
Fire brigade officials said the mishap took place when an occupant of the chawl lit a stove. Officials said Vikramsingh Rathore, a gas agency employee living in the chawl, had 20 cylinders in his room. "When we reached the spot around midnight, locals had extinguished the fire," said a fire brigade official.
"It could have been a big tragedy," said Katraj fire station duty officer Sanjay Ramteke. "The blast is most likely because of a gas leak. We believe the cylindersu00a0 were in the chawl room, as they were haphazardly lined up outside when we reached. We did not see a tempo with cylinders."
Chawl owner Gunwant Mule said he rented out the ground floor room six months ago to Rathore and Shravan Chavan. "Rathore might have kept undelivered cylinders with him," said Mule, who lives on the first floor.
The police contradicted the fire brigade officials' version.
"The cylinders were kept in a tempo outside the chawl," said Sub-Inspector M G Kale.
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