Firecracker blast in Aligarh; mother, daughter killed

Aligarh: A woman and her daughter lost their lives and five others were critically when an explosion took place in a house stocked with firecrackers here.

The incident took place on Friday at the house of Rafiq, a trader in fireworks at Jalali under Harduaganj police station. The deceased have been identified as Afsari, 35, and her daughter Tayyaba 15.

Rafiq is a licence holder of fire crackers. He had stored fire crackers illegally at his house, a senior police official at the DGP headquarters stated.

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SSP Aligarh and SP (rural) along with senior district officials visited the explosion site and oversaw the rescue operations. Two bodies were pulled out of the debris of the house, which caved in due to the impact of the explosion.

Five injured have been rushed to the Aligarh medical college, where the condition of two is stated to be critical.

It may be mentioned that this is the third such incident in the past few days in the run up to the festival of Diwali.

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Director General of Police (DGP) Sulkhan Singh has issued strict guidelines to police officials in districts to check stockpiling of fire crackers.