Nagpur: Even after two months of blast at Solar Industries India Limited near Nagpur which claimed the lives of nine workers on December 17 last year, the Petroleum and Explosive Safety Organization (PESO) has not submitted its report into the tragedy. The lack of this report has crippled the police investigation as well as the magisterial inquiry by the Collector, delaying justice for the dead, a local media report claimed.
The police have been unable to file a charge sheet without the crucial report by PESO, which is the nodal agency for petroleum and explosive safety norms and their enforcement.
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Thursday 09 Jan. 2025
The police had registered an offence against unidentified personnel of the concerned explosive department of the company. They could not identify anyone specific to fix responsibility as only PESO’s report about the violation of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) under the petroleum rules and Act would have helped reach some conclusions.
Despite repeated reminders, it’s reported that PESO had been delaying their report for reasons best known to them. Senior police officials of Nagpur Rural Police have now sent an email to the PESO headquarters seeking their report on the blast within seven days. Further failure to send the report may spur police to send a summons to PESO under Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) 91 to produce the documents.
According to the report, the Nagpur Rural Police are yet to get the technical information from PESO on the compliance with the petroleum and explosives safety rules and norms by Solar Industries India Limited, where the nine workers, including six women, were killed in the packaging and filtering unit of TNT explosives.
The report said Peso’s investigation into the Solar blast case was also probably hit by the action on senior-most officials by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) around a month ago in a bribery case.
The report also said the Collector’s inquiry into the blast case too has been delayed as the PESO report has not been submitted. The Collector’s inquiry is learnt to be connected to the civil aspects of the blast while the police are probing the criminal negligence.
