Jalandhar blast caused by shell

Preliminary investigations by the Forensic Department team from Chandigarh into Tuesdays blast in Jalandhars 20 SATA unit of the Armys 11 Corps has indicated that it could have been an old shell and not a battery that exploded leading to four deaths.

Meanwhile,the Army is tight-lipped about the blast and has deputed a four-member committee headed by a Colonel to investigate the incident from all angles including sabotage. Sources said the forensic team reached here on Wednesday and the material gathered by them from the blast spot led to the finding. The media was not allowed to visit the spot. Sources said there was a huge room in the MT section where dumps of scrap were lying and the deceased were doing some work close to this dump.

The bodies of the deceased,Havildar Dhaneshwar Brahma of Assam,Naik Lalit Kumar of Haryana,Lance Naik Jagbandhu Topo of Orissa and Gunner Sriniwas Rao of Andhra Pradesh,were brought to the Civil Hospital Jalandhar for a post mortem.