Modi has faced public criticism for failing to respond quickly to
disasters such as the floods in Chennai late last year. Large parts of
the city were under water for days before government help arrived
Narendra Damodardas Modi-Prime Minister of India.(Telegraph)
Indian police have detained five
people after a fireworks display at a Hindu temple set off explosions
and fire killing 108 people, an officer said on Monday, in one of the
worst accidents at a religious festival.
Thousands
of people were gathered at the temple at Kollam in the southern state
of Kerala on Sunday for the pyrotechnic show to mark the start of the
Hindu year when sparks ignited a cache of fireworks stored inside the
temple grounds.
The district administration said
it had not given permission for the fireworks display following
complaints of noise and pollution.
Police officer Anantha Krishnan said
the five taken into custody were employees of a fireworks manufacturer
who was given the contract for running the show at the Puttingal Devi
temple.
The head of the manufacturing unit was
injured, one of 380 people who were in hospitals across the state with
burns as well as injuries caused by flying concrete and debris.
But police had not been able to reach members of the temple management, Krishnan said.
Kerala
is studded with temples managed by rich and powerful trusts that often
flout local regulations. Each year temples hold fireworks displays,
often competing to stage the most spectacular ones, with judges who
decide the winners.
On Monday, grieving relatives
of the victims were scouring the temple grounds for possessions of their
loved ones among the shoes, handbags and other articles strewn in a
pile of debris and a puddle, dark red with blood.
"There were so many men and women lying on the ground, lifeless," said Anish Kumar, a resident.
The
scale of the tragedy has ignited demands that fireworks shows be banned
at crowded places in Kerala. The chief of the state unit of the Indian
Medical Association, A. V. Jayakrishna, said he planned to file a
petition before the Kerala High Court on Monday curbing the use of
fireworks.
Such has been the outrage across the
nation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew to Kollam within a few
hours with a team of doctors.
Opposition politicians led by Rahul Gandhi also
visited the temple site, demanding a thorough investigation into the
cause of the fire which took place amid a state election to choose a new
assembly.
Modi has faced public criticism for
failing to respond quickly to disasters such as the floods in Chennai
late last year. Large parts of the city were under water for days before
government help arrived.
But Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party said he was focused on the task in hand.
"Ever
since the Gujarat earthquake, in any disaster, the prime minister wants
to be hands on," said BJP spokesman M.J. Akbar, referring to Modi's
work in his home state when the 2001 quake hit.
"Where
he keeps aloof - and rightly so - is in all these artificial,
emotional, sound-bite controversies. He is consistent in his
interventions and in his silences."
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