SRINAGAR, 13 August 2007 — Two soldiers were killed and at least 40 people injured in a major fire that destroyed one of India’s largest munitions depots located in northern Jammu and Kashmir state, news reports said yesterday.
The fire that broke out at the Khandroo facility in Anantnag district, about 70 kilometers south of state capital Srinagar, on Saturday was still to be fully contained, PTI news agency reported quoting official sources. The sources said the intensity of the fire had lessened and that shells were exploding only occasionally.
Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad today made an aerial survey of the villages affected by yesterday’s explosions in the army’s ammunition depot.Maj. Gen. S. K. Bharadwaj briefed the chief minister about the incident. He said people who had been evacuated from the adjacent villages should not hurry in returning to their homes till these areas were cleared of unexploded ammunition that had flown from the depot following the fire incident.
Two militant groups have called local news agencies in Srinagar claiming responsibility for the fire. Army spokesman Lt. Col. A.K. Mathur rejected the claims and said the fire was probably an accident. “Claims of militant outfits in this regard are baseless,” he said.
The authorities had evacuated more than 30,000 villagers living within a 6-kilometer radius of the munitions depot. Most of them were allowed to return home Saturday, but at least 10,000 who lived nearest the depot were still being kept at temporary shelters, Mathur said.
The Khandroo depot is the Indian Army’s largest cache of arms in the northern region.
