Police will take legal action against the cascading incidents of LP gas related explosions and fires based on scientific evidence.
Police spokesman SSP Nihal Talduwa yesterday said that they are awaiting the views and recommendation of the petroleum experts, engineers, professors, chemical experts, scientists and others before taking legal action.
He said that despite the fact that people have informed the explosions to the Police, and the affected parties or victims have noticed them that the explosions were caused by malfunctioning of gas cylinders and their contents, the police is unable to pursue legal action without scientific evidence.
“We await the recommendations of the Expert Committee appointed by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on the matter,” he said.
When asked about the reasons for their concern as these explosions are more of a matter of the Consumer Affairs Ministry than the police, he said, “One could say that it involved consumer items such as gas cylinders, regulators and cookers, but it has created panic across the country, and we still don’t know what its implications are. Of course, there are no criminal implications of course. But the public property has been damaged. There have been casualties.”
“On Tuesday, the police received thirty reports of gas explosions. There were also 16 explosions on Monday.”We are quite concerned,” SSP Talduwa remarked.
Meanwhile, when we asked the biggest LP gas operator in Sri Lanka, Litro Gas, if they had considered compensating the public for the damages caused by their gas cylinders, a Litro national sales official stated that their cylinders had undergone all safety requirements.
“It’s possible that these explosions were caused by defective or inadequate cookers and regulators. People are not buying new gas stoves since their prices have risen dramatically. “They also utilize low-quality regulators and hoses,” he added.
“Our firm suggests EU standard regulators, which customers can buy from us.”
“However, people have opted for regulators that are of inferior quality that sell for around Rs 350,” he said.
When it was pointed out that people had been using these cookers and regulators without fear of them exploding for such a long time until they all started blowing up on a regular basis, the official said that due to the Covid 19 situation, people have hardly replaced or repaired their gas cookers and related accessories for the past two and a half years.
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