Two days after 23 people died in a blast here, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh now ordered a state-wide crackdown on all illegal firecracker manufacturing units operating from residential and congested areas.
After visiting the blast site and meeting some of the victims in hospital, the chief minister said, “I can assure you that I will set up a committee headed by the chief secretary and the director general of police to carry out inspections across Punjab to find such factories and we will shut them down. We will not allow these to carry on.”
Earlier, families of the victims blamed the Gurdaspur district administration for failing to shut down the “illegal” unit despite repeated pleas.
