SAHIWAL: An army hawaldar and his brother died and their nephew suffered critical injuries when explosives they were allegedly preparing in their farmhouse went off on Sunday morning.

Police quoted family sources as saying that hawaldar Gulam Hyder, currently on leave before retirement, and his brother Gulam Nabi were carrying out an experiment to generate electricity by linking a box containing some substances with a battery in their village when powerful explosion took place.

The blast shook the village and people came out of their homes in panic.

Both the brothers died on the spot and their injured nephew Abbas Waseem was taken to the district hospital in Sahiwal.

A number of electrical devices and batteries were found at the site of the blast.

District police officer Syed Khurram Ali told newsmen that a bomb disposal squad was examining the explosives.

He said preliminary findings suggested that the brothers were preparing some explosives, adding that laboratory analysis would help police to reach a conclusion.

The farmhouse is owned by a farmer, Gulam Hussain, who belongs to the Barelvi school of thought and is known for his strong religious views. His sons Ahmed Din and Gulam Nabi were engaged in farming and Gulam Hyder worked in the army’s engineering / electrical wing.

Ghulam Hussain described his sons as ‘shaheed’ and said the devices were used to generate electricity during outages.

Mahmoodul Hasan, the SHO of nearby town of Noorshah, told Dawn that police had sealed the farmhouse to collect evidence and the material found there had been sent to a forensic laboratory in Lahore.