Three killed in blaze at crackers shop in Chhattisgarh

Three persons were charred to death in a fire at a crackers shop in Chhattisgarh's Kondagaon district, police said on Monday. The mishap took place in grocer Kashi Sen's shop in Makdi village late Sunday night, a local police official said. Sen ran a grocery shop at Bazaar Chowk in the village and also used to sell firecrackers from there during Diwali festival as he had a license for it, he said.

On Sunday, Sen sold firecrackers to villagers while his two friends - Balram Netam and Shivlal Shrimali - pitched in to help him in managing the crowd at the shop, he said. Later, after pulling down the shutters, the three remained inside the shop when the firecrackers stored there caught fire around 11.30 pm, the official said.

The flames gutted the entire store and the three men died on the spot, he said. On getting information of the incident, the police rushed to the spot, he said, adding that the flames was later doused with the help of locals. The charred bodies were sent for postmortem, he said. A team of experts from a forensic science laboratory visited the site on Monday morning to ascertain the exact cause of the fire, he said.