July 10, 2003	Thursday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 9,1424

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PESHAWAR, July 9: Three persons were killed and 21 were injured in an explosion in a factory in Hayatabad Industrial Estate.

The blast was attributed by workers on a bomb shell mistakenly placed in furnace while the government and police officials blamed the explosion on gas leakage.

The blast occurred at around 10:50am and resulted in the collapse of the factory’s shed in which the furnace was installed.

Eyewitnesses said that workers of the Hasan Aluminium Works were at their stations at the time of the explosion.

Those, who died in the explosion, included owner of the factory Shafiq Khan Marwat, one of the labourers, Abdur Rehman died at the Hayatabad Medical Centre, while another, Raz Mohammad was pronounced dead upon arrival at the Khyber Teaching Hospital.

Pakistan army troops and police personnel rescued 21 of the injured workers buried under the debris. The injured were later rushed to hospitals, witnesses said.

A factory worker, Mukhtiar, who had received minor head injuries, told this correspondent in hospital that the factory used scrap as raw material for manufacturing utensils.

He said that some of the scrap originated from Afghanistan and there was a possibility that one of the workers might have mistakenly placed a bomb shell in the furnace which led to the explosion.

Doctors at the Khyber Teaching Hospital said that they had received a dead body as well as six of the persons injured in the blast, adding that four of the injured had been discharged while condition of two Afghan labourers. Ashraf Shinwari and Fayyaz Khan, was critical.

Staff at the Hayatabad Medical Centre said that 13 of the 15 injured persons brought to the hospital had been discharged while the condition of one Inyatullah was critical.

SSP (operations) Khalid Habib said that the blast was caused by a gas leakage in the furnace, adding that the police were still uncertain about the actual cause of the explosion. “We will investigate whether the blast was caused by a live shell imported in scrap from Afghanistan or whether it was an act of subversion,” the SSP maintained.

A statement issued by the Home and Tribal Affairs Department’s crisis management centre also blamed the explosion on a “gas leakage” while ruling out the possibilities of sabotage and subversion.

Meanwhile, the NWFP government has announced Rs100,000 compensation for each of the deceased while Rs50,000 would be paid to the three of the critically injured persons.

In a related development, two of the provincial ministers, Asif Iqbal Daudzai and Malik Zafar Azam, and MPA Syed Zahir Ali Shah visited both the hospitals.