SAHIWAL, April 3: There are 50 illegal points of sale and refilling of LPG cylinders in the Sahiwal city which may cause any untoward incident, it is learnt.

Shopkeepers sell and refill LPG cylinders without observing any precautionary measures. Besides violating safety rules, these traders also overcharge LPG consumers.

Most of the refilling points are located in main busy bazaars, while one LPG gas refilling shop is just adjacent to the offices of Rescue 15 and the tehsil administration office at Sadar Chowk.

Two shops are at Mission Chowk, three on Jhaal Road, 12 at Kot Khadam Ali, and six at Pakpattan Chowk, five at Jahaz Ground and four at Bhutto Nagar.

District Coordination Officer Qazi Muhammad Ayub said he had constituted a committee comprising district officers and Civil Defense officials to compile a data on such refilling points and take action against the violators of the law.

He also sent a team to arrest the people running the LPG shop near the Rescue 15 office. When the team confiscated refilling material and locked the shop, a telephone from a really powerful quarter forced the team to leave the raid incomplete and return the confiscated material to the shopkeeper, according to a Civil Defense official, who was also part of the raiding team.

Last year, LPG cylinder explosions occurred at Pasha Street, Qureshi Hospital and High Street leaving many people injured. After the blasts, the government arrested 150 shopkeepers for running illegal LPG refilling points. Of them, only 50 were fined Rs2,000 each by courts. They paid the fines and now are again back to business.