India hunts for fugitive contractor blamed for deadly weekend explosion

Police in central India are on the hunt for a runaway contractor blamed for an explosion that left nearly 200 people wounded or dead.

Early Saturday morning, a crowded restaurant in Petlawad, Madya Pradesh, south of New Delhi, went up in flames when a gas cylinder exploded, igniting a bundle of illegally stashed combustibles in an adjacent building. The blast licked through the busy junction and nearby bus station, razing buildings, ripping out windows, and melting motorbike frames into pretzel-like twists.

Rescue workers pulled 90 crushed corpses from beneath heaps of wreckage. According to one BBC report, the city skies billowed with black smoke from funeral pyres late into the evening.

The majority of victims were schoolchildren buying breakfast on the way to Saturday class and poor day laborers, who sat in the restaurant drinking tea while waiting to work in nearby manganese mines.

According to local authorities, the explosives belonged to contractor Rajendra Kashawa, who kept mine detonators for work-related purposes. State police officer Kamlesh Bamaniya initially said the blast killed Kashawa, but later information revealed he was on the run, not dead. Indian police filed a case against the fugitive, charging him with criminal negligence.

According to a recent Reuters report, the accident is one of the worst to strike the subcontinent in years.

“This is a tragic incident, which has shook me. The causes of the incident will be investigated,” Madhya Pradesh’s chief minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, said in a televised statement.

But disgruntled locals were not satisfied with Chouhan’s sentiments. At least 50 protesters heckled the chief minister as he visited the blast site, shouting slogans and waving black flags, forcing him out of his government vehicle to listen to their litany of grievances against district officials.

Local television channel CNN-IBN reported Petlawad residents complained about Kashawa’s precariously placed explosives once before, but authorities took no action against the contractor, ignoring both civilian concerns and legal safety stipulations. According to state police, contractors licensed to own explosives are often lax about following storage guidelines, but district authorities turn a blind eye.

State Home Minister Babulal Gaur told the Times of India the restaurant blast showcased “severe negligence on the part of officials,” who are required to monitor licenses, storage, and registration of explosives at three-month intervals.

Kashawa stowed his mine detonators alongside a combustible cooking unit, but Petlawad district officials failed to file reports or inspect the storage location.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.