On Thursday, the Indian Army made it clear that no mortar shells were fired at the training range in the Gaya district of Bihar on Wednesday, when three people were killed in a nearby village.
Colonel Dushyant Singh Chauhan, the administrative commandant of Danapur Cantonment on the edge of the state capital, said that the Deuri Dumri firing range in Gaya had “no clearance” for mortar fire.
“It is clear that no mortars were fired on March 8, 2023, at the Deuri Dumri Field Firing Ranges…. Every day before firing in a Notified Firing Range, clearances are gotten from the local civil administration and police. “No such permission was asked for on March 8, 23 for mortar fire,” the official said.
To prove its point, the statement used news reports and photos of a crater left by the explosion at the scene of the incident.
“It has been pointed out that some parts of social media have been showing a hole in the ground in the shape of a circle, showing that this is where the mortar shell hit. Mortar shells don’t leave these marks when they explode when they hit the ground.
This could be a case of an unapproved collection of a mortar blind shell that fell in the designated impact area at an earlier time and an attempt to take it apart to get the metal out of it. This could have caused the explosion, which led to the unfortunate accident,” the Colonel said in a statement.
The cause of the tragedy is being looked into by the district administration with the help of Army teams, the statement said.
It also said, “The Indian Army sends its condolences to the families of those who died and were hurt in the unfortunate incident near Gulerbed Village, which is in the Barachatti Police Station in the district of Gaya.”
Meanwhile, the government in Gaya said it was “looking into everything” about the incident that killed three people from the same family and hurt as many more.
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