Restaurant owner booked for Jauhar blast that killed three

A day after an explosion at a restaurant near the Pakistan Meteorological Department’s office that had claimed the lives of a woman and her two minor children as well as injured six other people, the police registered a case against the owner of the eatery.

The case was registered at the Gulistan-e-Jauhar police station against the restaurant owner on the complaint of Muhammad Usman, brother of the deceased woman. Police have registered the case under multiple sections of the Pakistan Penal Code, including 322 (causing death without intention) and 427 (committing mischief causing damage).

According to the FIR, the complainant’s sister was climbing the stairs of the Crown Garden apartment building with her two children to reach his house at around 10:30am, when the explosion suddenly occurred at the restaurant and killed his sister and her children.

Within hours of the incident, the police and the bomb disposal squad had completed their investigation and reached the conclusion that a gas leak had caused the restaurant’s gas cylinder to explode.

However, considering the October 21 Maskan Chowrangi blast, which was first declared a gas cylinder explosion but later turned out to be terrorism, the Counter Terrorism Department and security agencies have collected evidences to determine the actual cause of the explosion.

According to the officials working on the case, the presence of an exhaust fan at the restaurant have raised questions about the possibility of gas accumulation at the eatery due to a leak.

On Wednesday panic and fear had gripped the locality as the loud explosion had occurred. Besides human casualties, the blast had also damaged three other shops and as many vehicles, shattering the windowpanes of the nearby shops and buildings.

Following the incident, ambulances of different welfare organisations reached the site and transported the casualties to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre. The deceased were identified as 32-year-old Fabia Ali, four-year-old Fatima Ali and two-year-old Abdullah Ali. They were residents of Gulistan-e-Jauhar Block 4.