Hyderabad: A woman ragpicker lost the fingers of her right hand and injured her leg in an explosion at Meerpet on Friday. The blast took place when N. Nirmala, 25, a lower caste menial worker, tried to forcibly open a plastic container collected from a garbage dump, said the police.
Nirmala, wife of N. Naresh, an auto driver, from Devarakonda village, lives in a hut at Singareni Colony in the Meerpet area. The woman collects trash and sells it to scrap traders. On Friday morning, Nirmala, along two women, left the home to collect scrap. When they reached Vijayapuri Colony, Nirmala picked up a plastic container from the garbage dump.
After walking for a distance, she tried to break open the container by hitting it on a stone on the road and the container exploded. She suffered severe injuries to her right hand and left leg in the explosion. The two women who were accompanying her alerted the locals who informed the police. The injured woman was sent to a private hospital and then shifted to Osmania General Hospital.
Police teams along with forensic experts and a dog squad inspected the blast site and collected clues. The police said that, prima facie, they could find the traces of solvents in the remnants collected from the spot.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Nirmala's husband, Naresh, said, “My wife said that she collected the plastic container from a dump on the roadside. She lost the fingers of her hand and there are holes on her leg. Though her condition is stated to be stable, I am worried. Why was the explosive material in the garbage dump?”
Meerpet inspector, K. Shiva Shankar, said that CCTV footage installed in the vicinity shows the sequence of incidents.
