<p>Five people, including children and women, were killed and over a dozen others injured, some seriously, in a crude bomb explosion that ripped through a congested slum in Kareli area of Uttar Pradesh’s Allahabad town, about 200 km from here, on Wednesday. Eyewitness accounts put the death toll at six.<br /><br /></p>.<p>According to police sources, the blast occurred in a garbage dump adjacent to a slum around 4 pm. Eyewitness accounts said the children, who were playing there, and some women ragpickers were hit by splinters.<br /><br />Situated close to river Yamuna and surrounded by the Muslim-dominated Kareli township, the slum has a reputation of being a veritable manufacturing centre of crude bombs and country-made weapons, according to sources in police department and the district administration.<br /><br />Police suspect a crude bomb to have set off the blast though they were unable to immediately qualify its intensity. “We are investigating...the cause can be identified only after a probe”, a senior police official said. The injured were rushed to nearby hospitals, police said. At least five of the injured were in a critical condition, and the toll could rise.<br />The government has sounded a statewide alert. Union Home Ministry sources ruled out any terror angle although a UP Anti-Terrorist Squad team and forensic experts have been sent to Allahabad. <br /><br />Compensation <br /><br />The slum dwellers claimed that the blast could be the handiwork of a construction company interested in acquiring the land occupied by squatters. Home Ministry sources endorsed the view. <br /><br />Superintendent of Police (Crime), Allahabad, Arun Kumar Pande said the blast was “prima facie the result of rag-pickers fiddling with a crude bomb that might have been left in a garbage heap”.<br /><br />According to the District Information Office, Allahabad, compensation of Rs 1 lakh has been announced for the family members of each of the deceased, Rs 50,000 for those who sustained serious injuries and Rs 20,000 for those with minor wounds.</p>
<p>Five people, including children and women, were killed and over a dozen others injured, some seriously, in a crude bomb explosion that ripped through a congested slum in Kareli area of Uttar Pradesh’s Allahabad town, about 200 km from here, on Wednesday. Eyewitness accounts put the death toll at six.<br /><br /></p>.<p>According to police sources, the blast occurred in a garbage dump adjacent to a slum around 4 pm. Eyewitness accounts said the children, who were playing there, and some women ragpickers were hit by splinters.<br /><br />Situated close to river Yamuna and surrounded by the Muslim-dominated Kareli township, the slum has a reputation of being a veritable manufacturing centre of crude bombs and country-made weapons, according to sources in police department and the district administration.<br /><br />Police suspect a crude bomb to have set off the blast though they were unable to immediately qualify its intensity. “We are investigating...the cause can be identified only after a probe”, a senior police official said. The injured were rushed to nearby hospitals, police said. At least five of the injured were in a critical condition, and the toll could rise.<br />The government has sounded a statewide alert. Union Home Ministry sources ruled out any terror angle although a UP Anti-Terrorist Squad team and forensic experts have been sent to Allahabad. <br /><br />Compensation <br /><br />The slum dwellers claimed that the blast could be the handiwork of a construction company interested in acquiring the land occupied by squatters. Home Ministry sources endorsed the view. <br /><br />Superintendent of Police (Crime), Allahabad, Arun Kumar Pande said the blast was “prima facie the result of rag-pickers fiddling with a crude bomb that might have been left in a garbage heap”.<br /><br />According to the District Information Office, Allahabad, compensation of Rs 1 lakh has been announced for the family members of each of the deceased, Rs 50,000 for those who sustained serious injuries and Rs 20,000 for those with minor wounds.</p>
