Face of Nation : Two years ago, a blast at the same cracker factory in Batala had shattered windows of Amandeep Singh Sandhu’s house. He and his family were lucky to have a narrow escape that time. But on Wednesday, he lost his sister-in-law Ramandeep Kaur (32), a college teacher, and nephew, Pahuldeep Singh (4) in the explosion.
“The blast was so powerful that I was pushed back onto the bed and 11 doors in my house were broken. All the windows came crashing down,” he said. Amardeep Singh’s house has a common wall the cracker factory.
“Our whole world changed in a second. We are a joint family of two brothers. I was sitting in my room on ground floor when I heard the blast,” said Amandeep Singh.
“I recovered from shock after 10 minutes and started looking for my family members. My sister-in-law and her four-year-old son were missing. Then I remembered that she had gone to the market with her son on the scooty. I felt relaxed for a minute and started calling her over the phone. But her phone was not reachable…..,” said Amandeep.
“We kept calling her. It was only after one hour that we found out that both the mother and son were trapped under the rubble of the collapsed factory,” he added.A narrow lane that separates the cracker factory and computer centre, connects Amandeep’s house to the main road along the drain. Ramandeep had just turned from main road to the narrow lane when the blast occurred. Amandeep’s neighbour, Bimla Rani, also died in the blast. She was reportedly standing in the street at the time of blast.
“Over two years back there was a blast at factory on January 21, 2017 and we had approached media and administration against this factory. But administration didn’t listen to us. We have also seen officials conducting raids at this factory a couple of times. But every time they would fail to find anything here because the factory owner would come to know about the raid in advance and he would shift the illegal material somewhere else,” said Amandeep.
“I was at my house during the previous blast too. On that day, our windows took a hit, but we escaped harm. But this time it has ruined our life,” said Amandeep. The whole family was planning to participate in the religious procession to mark Guru Nanak Dev’s wedding anniversary in the night.
“My nephew and my sister-in-law has been killed by the administration. Other people who were killed in the blast were are also murdered by the administration as they didn’t take any action against this factory despite the previous blast. It should be investigated as to who was shielding the factory owner,” said Amandeep.
