Nagpur: Nine people were killed and three others seriously injured in a blast at an explosives manufacturing factory in Maharashtra’s Nagpur district on Sunday, police said.

Nine people were killed

The incident took place at the unit, located 40 km from here, causing severe damage to the building, an official at Kondhali police station said, adding that 12 workers were present in the unit at the time of the explosion.

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in a post on X termed the incident as unfortunate and condoled the death of the nine people.

The state government will provide an ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakh to the families of the deceased and Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has approved the decision, he said.

Fadnavis said nine people, including six women, died in the blast at Solar Industries.

It is a company that manufactures drones and explosives for the armed forces, he said.

The state government stands firmly with the families of the victims on this sad occasion, he said.

“I am in touch with the Nagpur collector and superintendent of police. The IG, SP and collector are at the site,” Fadnavis added.

Solar Industries senior general manager Ashish Shrivastav told reporters that the incident occurred in the building where boosters used in coal mines are produced.

The incident took place when sealing work of the product was going on, he said.

Thiruvananthapuram: Around 10 fishermen from Tamil Nadu who were arrested earlier this month from near the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) in the Indian Ocean, and tried and fined 60,000 Pounds Sterling, were on Sunday handed over to the Indian Coast Guard.

The fishermen had ventured into fishing areas in the deep sea, around 230 nautical miles near the BIOT — an archipelago of 58 islands covering some 640,000 sq km of ocean, a defence statement said.

The area is a British Overseas Territory, located approximately halfway between East Africa and Indonesia, and administered from London, the statement said.

The fishermen were arrested on December 6, tried at BIOT and fined 60,000 Pounds Sterling, it said and added that information regarding the same was communicated to the Indian Ocean Directorate of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on December 14.

The fishermen’s boat has been seized as the fine was not paid and the 10 crew were released, it said.

The fishermen have 30 days from December 12 till January 11, 2024 to pay the fine, the statement said.

They were brought off Vizhinjam on BIOT patrol vessel ‘Grampien Endurance’ and were handed over at sea to Indian Coast Guard ships ‘Arnavesh’ and ‘C 427’, the statement said.

The fishermen are expected to arrive at Vizhinjam around 10 am where they will be medically examined and interrogated by agencies concerned.

Subsequently, they will be handed over to the Fisheries Department for safe passage to Tamil Nadu, the statement added.

In a similar incident, around 35 fishermen who were arrested in September for attempting to fish near the BIOT area were released to the Indian Coast Guard on November 20.

Surat: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday inaugurated the Surat Diamond Bourse, the world’s largest and modern centre for international diamond and jewellery business.

The Surat Diamond Bourse (SDB) building, the world’s largest office complex with more than 67 lakh square feet of floor area, is located at Khajod village near Surat city.
It will be a global centre for trading of both rough and polished diamonds as well as jewellery, as per an official statement.

It will comprise a state-of-the-art ‘Customs Clearance House’ for import and export, jewellery mall for retail jewellery business and facility of international banking and safe vaults, it said.

Several diamond traders, including those based in Mumbai earlier, have already taken possession of their offices, which were allotted by the management after auction, SDB’s media convener Dinesh Navadiya said in a statement recently.

The SDB is part of the Diamond Research and Mercantile (DREAM) City.

Former Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel in February 2015 performed the ground-breaking ceremony of the SDB and DREAM City project.

With 67 lakh square feet of floor space, the SDB is now the world’s largest office building having nearly 4,500 diamond trading offices, a release said.

The mega structure, built on a plot of 35.54 acres inside the DREAM City, has nine towers of 15 floors with office spaces ranging from 300 sq ft to 1 lakh sq ft.

New Delhi: Four days after the Parliament’s security was breached, the Delhi Police has recovered fragments of some broken and burnt mobile phones from Rajasthan’s Nagaur, an official said on Sunday.

Police have added IPC sections related to destruction of evidence to the FIR against the accused.

An officer privy to the investigations said a few pieces of mobile phones have been recovered on Saturday on the instance of Lalit Jha, who was among six arrested by the police in connection to the case.

A team of Delhi Police’s Special Cell on Saturday took Jha to Rajasthan’s Nagaur where he stayed with the help of accused Mahesh Kumawat, officials said.

Sources said that the Delhi Police has decided to add more IPC sections, including Section 201 (destruction of evidence/disappearance of evidence) in the FIR registered on December 13. Police have filed terrorism charges under the stringent UAPA against the accused.

Police officials said Jha and Kumawat intentionally destroyed the mobile phones to hide technical evidence related to the case.

The Delhi Police have arrested six persons so far Sagar Sharma, Manoranjan D, Amol Shinde, Neelam Devi, Lalit Jha and Mahesh Kumawat for their alleged involvement in the Parliament security breach case.

Two men — Sagar Sharma and Manoranjan D had jumped into the Lok Sabha chamber from the public gallery during Zero Hour, released yellow smoke from canisters and shouted slogans, before being overpowered by the MPs.

Around the same time, two others Amol Shinde and Neelam Devi released coloured smoke from canisters while shouting “tanashahi nahi chalegi” outside the Parliament premises.

Jha, who was present outside the gate, had recorded the act on his mobile phone. After uploading it on social media and sharing it with his friends, he went to Nagaur in Rajasthan. Kumawat and accused Kailash, who are cousins, allegedly arranged his stay there.

Later Jha and Kumawat came to Delhi and surrendered to the police.

Lucknow: Construction of a proposed mosque in Ayodhya mandated by the Supreme Court in its Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case verdict is expected to begin in May, people associated with the project have said.

The Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation Trust, which is tasked with building the mosque in Ayodhya’s Dhannipur, also intends to appoint in-charges in different states starting in February to raise funds.

Settling a fractious issue that goes back more than a century, the Supreme Court in a historic verdict on November 9, 2019, backed the construction of a Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya and ruled that an alternative plot be found for a mosque in the Hindu holy town.

The construction of the mosque is yet to begin even as the consecration ceremony of the Ram temple is expected to take place on January 22, 2024.

Chief trustee of the Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation Zufar Farooqui said, “The final design of the mosque is likely to be ready by mid-February and it will then go for administrative approval. The site office will be set up in the complex in February.”

“It is expected that we will be in a position to start construction of the mosque in May next year,” Farooqui, who is also the chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board, told PTI.

Farooqui said the construction of the Mohammad Bin Abdullah Ayodhya Mosque is getting delayed due to the fresh formalities after “drastic” changes were made in the design of the mosque and financial constraints.

The initial design of the mosque was based on those built in India. However, it was rejected and a new design was prepared. The mosque will be built on 40,000 square feet instead of the earlier 15,000 square feet, he said.

The IICF had earlier decided to shift to a “grand” design for the mosque similar to the one adopted in the Middle Eastern countries.

Asked about the possibility of a crowdfunding campaign to overcome the financial constraints, Farooqui said the trust will take a call on it by February.

“Crowdfunding is a huge task and very difficult to handle. What we are trying to do is to give responsibility to our people in different states to raise funds for the project,” he said.

“We will work in a manner to ensure both transparency and accountability,” he added.

Currently, the Mumbai team associated with the trust is working on this and it is expected that within one-and-a-half months, we will have sufficient funds, Farooqui said.

However, Farooqui did not completely rule out the possibility of crowdfunding and said that if needed, online donations would be sought from the people willing to donate.

He also asserted that the construction of the mosque was getting delayed more so due to the changes in the design.

IICF Secretary Athar Hussain said that the trust will build a hospital, library, community kitchen and a museum along with the mosque on the land given by the government.

Talks have been held with a group from Mumbai and they have been made in-charge of the construction committee.

Asked when the construction will be completed, Hussain said it will depend on the availability of funds.

On the orders of the Supreme Court, the government had given five acres of land in Dhannipur, Ayodhya to the Sunni Central Waqf Board Uttar Pradesh to construct the mosque.

The board then formed the IICF for the construction of the mosque and other facilities like a community kitchen, a research institute, a hospital and a museum.

A map of the proposed mosque and other buildings was submitted to the Ayodhya Development Authority in 2021. It was approved in March this year.

Nagpur: Angry locals and relatives of workers blocked a highway near an explosives manufacturing unit in Nagpur district, where a blast claimed nine lives on Sunday, and demanded they be allowed to allowed to enter the premises to see the bodies.

The crowd was later dispersed, police said.
According to sources, the bodies of the victims were still inside the premises, where the blast took place at 9 am.

Nine people were killed and three others injured in the incident, police said.
A number of ambulances were stationed at the entrance gate of the Solar Industries factory, located at Bazaargaon, about 30 km rom the district headquarters.

A tense situation prevailed as nearly 200 people, including local residents and relatives of the workers, gheraoed the factory’s entrance gate.

A senior police official told PTI that there were explosives near the spot.

The explosives need to be secured and bomb disposable squads were at the spot, he said.

The process of securing the explosives was underway and thereafter the bodies will be recovered, the official said.

Angry locals and relatives of the victims blocked the Amravati-Nagpur road outside the factory.

They raised slogans in front of the factory’s entrance gate and blocked the Amravati-Nagpur highway, demanding that they be allowed to enter the premises to see the bodies of their kin.

The police later dispersed the crowd, an official said.

Heavy police security was deployed in the area.

The father of Aarti Sahare, who is among the deceased, told reporters that he got a message about the death of her daughter at 9.30 am and was still waiting for further information.

The blast also caused severe damage to the factory building, as per police.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in a post on X termed the incident as unfortunate and condoled the death of the nine people.

The state government will provide an ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakh to the families of the deceased and Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has approved the decision, he said.
Fadnavis said nine people, including six women, died in the blast at Solar Industries. It is a company that manufactures drones and explosives for the armed forces, he said.

The state government stands firmly with families of the victims on this sad occasion, he said.