Puri Chandan Yatra Blast: 9 Discharged From Hospitals; 3 Cracker Suppliers Detained

Puri: Nine persons, who had sustained burns in the Chandan Yatra firecracker explosion incident in Odisha’s Puri, have been discharged from hospital.

“Three injured persons – Balram Das (5), Manmohan Behera (24) and Sridhar Rout (49)- were discharged from SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack today. Previously, 6 persons were discharged on the advise of the doctors. At present, 14 patients are under treatment in different hospitals,” the Health Department said.

No further casualties have been reported, it added.

Three persons had initially died while 30 were injured in the explosion in a firecracker stockpile during the religious event on May 29. The toll mounted to six on Friday as 3 more injured succumbed to the burns while another three died on Saturday. Four more succumbed to burns on Sunday, taking the total to 13. The deceased include an 18-month-old baby boy, a four-year-old girl, a six-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy. The others are in the age group of 15-38 years.

The injured were initially admitted to Puri district headquarters hospital, but later shifted to the SCB Medical College in Cuttack and hospitals in Bhubaneswar for specialised treatment as their condition worsened. Doctors attending to the injured, including several minors, said some of them have sustained over 90% burns.

Meanwhile, police have detained three men from Nimapara area in connection with the incident at Narendra pond near Jagannath Puri temple when hundreds of devotees had gathered to witness the annual Chandan Yatra festival of Lord Jagannath and his siblings. They had allegedly supplied huge quantities of crackers to some locals, who had illegally stored them at the festival venue where hundreds of people had gathered to watch Chandan Yatra that evening. “We are interrogating the three cracker suppliers to know whether their manufacturing unit has a valid licence and the nature of the explosives,” Puri SP Pinak Mishra told TOI.

Special relief commissioner (SRC) Satyabrata Sahu is expected to visit the special circuit house in Puri on June 5 and conduct an inquiry into the lapses which led to the fire mishap during the fireworks display.