Pulgaon fire: No sabotage, cause to be known after inquiry, says Manohar Parrikar

Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today said there was no sabotage involved in the fire at the central ammunition depot at Pulgaon in the district but the exact cause would be known only after inquiry. “We are not ruling out any possibility but there is no sabotage as such,” he told reporters.

Fire was contained with timely help from all the concerned persons and only a complete inquiry will reveal its cause, Parrikar said.

It is too early to speculate about the cause, he added. Parrikar, who visited the injured personnel at the Datta Meghe Medical College and Hospital at Sawangi Meghe in the district, said 130 tonnes of anti-tank mines were destroyed in the fire.

However, the 16 persons who lost their lives while trying to douse it succeeded in saving the ammunition stored in nine other sheds, the minister said.

Parrikar, accompanied by the Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag, spent more than half an hour meeting the injured personnel at the hospital.

At least 16 defence personnel, including two Army officers, were killed in the massive fire that broke out at one of Asia’s biggest ammunition depot in Pulgaon which houses the largest stockpile of weapons in the country.

The fire which started at 1 AM at one of the sheds that housed “highly sensitive ammunition” in the high security central ammunition depot (CAD), spread over 7,000 acres, has been completely doused and the situation brought under control after an overnight operation.