The death toll in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur LPG tanker fire incident has gone up, with four people succumbing to burn injuries on Sunday. A total of seven people lost their lives in the unfortunate incident.
Hoshiarpur Deputy Commissioner Aashika Jain said Manjit Singh, 60, Vijay, 17, Jaswinder Kaur, 65, and Aradhna Verma, 30, all residents of Mandiala, died at a private hospital overnight. All of them had sustained over 90 per cent burns and were on ventilator support, said the Civil Surgeon Dr Pawan Kumar.
On Friday, around 10 pm, an LPG tanker caught fire after colliding with a pickup vehicle near Mandiala Adda on the Hoshiarpur-Jalandhar Road. The fire spread rapidly, engulfing nearly 15 shops and at least four houses in the vicinity, as per the statement issued by the police. Two people died in the immediate wake of the incident, while 21 others sustained injuries. One more succumbed to burns on Saturday.
According to the police FIR, the tanker was turning towards the Ram Nagar Dheha link road when it collided with the vegetable-laden pickup. Both vehicles caught fire.
Dr Pawan Kumar said that immediately after the incident, one person was brought dead to the Government Hospital, Hoshiarpur, while another succumbed at a private hospital. The third died on the way to the Government Medical College, Amritsar.
On Saturday morning, hundreds of residents of Mandiala and adjoining villages blocked traffic on the Hoshiarpur-Jalandhar road for over three hours, demanding compensation and action against those responsible for the incident.
Deputy Commissioner Jain assured the protesters that the injured were being provided free treatment under the Punjab government's Farishta Scheme.
Political leaders cutting across party lines, including many Punjab ministers and MPs, have visited the injured at hospitals. Meanwhile, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Saturday announced Rs 2 lakh each for the kin of the deceased and free medical treatment of the injured.
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