Bandipora: A 26-year-old man died in a gas cylinder blast while another person received burn injuries in an uphill village of Kudhara in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district on Thursday. The incident, as per the officials occurred at around 11 am wherein the house of the owner, Mohammad Shafi Khan also got reduced to ashes.
According to the relatives, the family was cooking some food when the gas burners erupted in flames. “When the family raised a hue and cry, Sajad, 26 who lives in the neighbourhood rushed inside through the burning cylinder to save the house when it exploded, injuring him grievously,” Israel Khan Turk said. Soon after, Iqbal, Shafi’s son who runs a shop nearby too went in for a rescue and got injured.
“As soon as we received the information, we along with officials of the fire and emergency department rushed to the spot to rescue the injured caught in the flames which engulfed the house soon after the explosion. The locals were already at the spot,” DO police station of Sumlar village told the Greater Kashmir.
The police official said that they with the help of the locals and other staff managed to evacuate the injured to the nearby hospital in Chuntimullah village, however, the 26-year-old Sajad Ahmad Khan Gojar, son of Feroz Ahamd, who was critically injured had succumbed to the injuries before reaching there. As per the locals, a few more had received minor injuries and were treated locally.
Iqbal Ahmad Khan, the official said, was shifted to the District Hospital Bandipora for further treatment. The medical superintendent, Dr Mushtaq said that the condition of the injured person was stable and he was “out of danger”.
The villagers who are shocked and descended in grief meanwhile were aggrieved with the fire and emergency department for not sanctioning a fire tender to the area despite being a hilly terrain and quite a distance from the mainland.
“After everything was reduced to ashes we got to know that a small fire engine had arrived in the village. Our houses are mainly wooden and nothing could be saved from the burned house,” an elderly villager, Muhammad Isreal Turk said.