Hyderabad: Six people were injured, two of them seriously, in an explosion triggered by an LPG cylinder leak at a shop at Reddy Complex,

Ameerpet

, early on Monday morning.
Doctors at a hospital in Ameerpet told TOI that the two suffered about 30% burns and were undergoing surgery at the time last reports came in. "We can only assess their health after 24 hours," the doctor said. The two seriously injured were identified as Sonu Punlik, 23, and Charan, 24, while the others were Bablu, 24, Baldeem, 25, Mallapa, 35, and Karan Shinde, 37.
The explosion caused damage to two shops,

Crescent Cafe and Bakers

and

Hari Dosa

, which are located in the bustling student hub of Ameerpet and serve hundreds of people every day. While the two shop owners blamed each other for the LPG leakage, police were investigating the incident. "When we closed the shop around 1am, there were two empty and two full cylinders inside the shop. I believe the blast might have occurred due to gas leakage from their shop (Hari Dosa), as flames were seen coming from inside their shop," Mohammed Hussain, owner of Crescent Cafe and Bakers, told TOI.
In a CCTV clip, two people could be seen preparing dosa when the flames engulfed them. However, there was no clarity on how or where the fire initially started. "The blast was so powerful that all the furniture from our shop landed in the middle of the road. We believe the gas leaked from one of the cylinders in their shop (Crescent Cafe and Bakers). Oil also fell on our workers after the flames caught them. We used fire extinguishers to douse the flames," Sandeep Tulakaj of Hari Dosa told TOI.

The walls of both shops developed cracks due to the blast, and a car got damaged too. The windows of the residences on the first floor were shattered. A fire department official from the SR Nagar Fire Station told TOI that shop owners were regularly advised to keep an adequate supply of fire extinguishers.