Batala tragedy: Family that owned cracker factory loses ten members; youngest was 12-year-old Raju 

He identified Bablu, Laddi, Raju, Eliya, Raja, Rocky, Winkle, Romy and Tarlok as family members who were among the dead.

“Six of my cousins and two nephews and a close relative died in this blast. The youngest victim from the family was Raju, who was only 12 years old,” said Rahul.

Rescue works underway after a blast in a fireworks factory at Batala, in Gurdaspur district of Punjab, Wednesday, Sept 4, 2019. (PTI Photo)

“There was huge raw material stocked at the factory as Diwali and Dussehra are coming. There was preparation going on for the Guru Nanak birth anniversary function. We had lots of orders and workers were deployed to complete the order,” Rahul said. He added that this was not the first blast at the factory. One worker had died during a blast at the factory in January 2017.

READ | Batala cracker factory blast kills 4-year-old boy, mother from house that shared wall with factory

“Last time blast had occurred as a worker had pushed gunpowder in to cracker shell with more than required force. Same thing might have happened again. Last time the raw material was not that much. But this time there was enough raw material to create a high-intensity blast,” he said.

Rahul’s family lived at a house built inside the factory premises. The family had this cracker factory as their main business.

Apart from two factory workers admitted at the Civil Hospital, there were three injured who had come to buy crackers. “We had come to buy crackers. We heard a blast and then I found myself here in the hospital,” said Shinda, who had come from a nearby town to buy firecrackers for the religious function.