Elderly man killed as midnight blasts rock Mumbai grocery shop

Mumbai, April 25 (IANS) A 70-year-old male citizen was killed when a major fire broke out in a grocery shop after two gas cylinders burst shortly before midnight of Wednesday-Thursday, the BMC Disaster Control said here.

The dual-blasts incident took place around 11.55 p.m. causing a fire in the electrical wiring, installation and grocery articles on the ground floor. The fire then spread to the upper floor residential area at the congested Jai Maharashtra Nagar in Antop Hill, and locals summoned the fire brigade.

Though the fire was limited to the electrical fittings and installations, one man who was reportedly sleeping on the upper storey was trapped in the fumes and flames leaping up from the grocery shop below.

The locals informed the firemen that one man, said to be the grocer, was trapped on the upper story of the chawl, and after a short battle with the blaze, the fire brigade retrieved the victim’s charred body from there and rushed it to Sion Hospital.

He was identified as Pannalal Vaishya, 70, who had sustained 100 per cent burns in the conflagration and succumbed before he could be rescued. The cause of the double gas cylinders blasts-cum-blaze is not clear and the Mumbai Police are probing the tragedy.