Five persons were killed and six others injured on Saturday when a mortar shell exploded in the crowded Bengali Basti area in Meerut, police said ruling it out as a terrorist act."Some rag pickers had found the mortar shells in the Cantonment area while gathering scrap. They struck the shell with a hammer to extract metal and it exploded," Inspector General of Police, Meerut Range, Harbhajan Singh said.The five killed have been have been identified Omar Dutt, 10, Nizamul Hasan, 12, Sudhiyan, 18, Razakh Ali, 16, and 17-year-old Musharraf.Six people were injured and two of them were stated to be in critical condition, Deputy Superintendent of Police P V Ramashastri said.Five more shells were detected and army experts called to defuse them, he said. The explosion occurred at around 3 pm in a slum where mostly Bangladeshi immigrants are residing.The DSP said it was an ‘accident’ and not related to any terror activities.Families of each of those killed will be given Rs 50,000 while the injured with get Rs 30,000, District Collector Kamini Chouhan said.
