Jhabua tragedy: One man's greed caused death of 89 innocents

Bhopal: At least 89 innocents have lost their lives and over 100 others injured in a tragedy that could have easily averted.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was gheraoed by angry locals as he came visiting to the accident site at Petlawad town of Jhabua on Sunday morning – but his assurances of help brought little respite to those who have lost their near and dear ones in the tragedy.

The small settlement of a few thousand had never seen such grief. They are numb with sorrow and shock at having seen dismembered body parts of men and women they knew.

While initial reports attributed the explosion to a cylinder blast but it soon became clear that the tragedy was brought the town by the criminal negligence of one man – Rajendra Kasawa.

Kasawa owns the building, in the heart of the town, in which the explosion took place – right next to a popular restaurant packed with people.

He has a licence to use explosive material for digging wells in rocky areas and had stored the explosive material including gelatin sticks in huge quantity in the residential building, when ideally explosives are mandated to be stored in an isolated place, away from human settlements.

Kasawa may have done so to save some money but his careless act has left tens of family in the improvised region in utter darkness.

Kasawa is absconding even as a case has been registered against him. However, he has left behind a number of questions that the MP government and district administration must answer.

The pressure is now on CM Chouhan to also find the guilty in the system who turned a blind eye to Kasawa breaking the law.