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| Sunday, 22 December 2002 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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CMC to crackdown on illegal firecracker-stalls by Shanika Sriyananda Liyanage The Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) will remove all unauthorised outlets, selling firecrackers in the City, in the wake of the Gasworks Street fire. Public health inspectors and income tax officers of the CMC will be assisted by police officers to raid all makeshift outlets, which were given permits only to sell New Year and Christmas cards. But these vendors sell firecrackers, without valid permits from the CMC, CMC sources said. They will be given three days time to remove and clean up all fire cracker stalls and, if they fail to do so, they will be taken to task, the sources added. The "Sunday Observer" learns that the Defence Ministry has also issued instructions to the police to raid such outlets which sell illegal and substandard firecrackers which are banned from last year. Meanwhile, the Government Analyst Department is yet to confirm whether Tuesday's fire at Adamalee complex,Gasworks street, was due to TNT (Tri Nitro Toluene), a high powered explosive said to have been hidden in the century old building. Twenty-one persons were killed and several others injured in the inferno. Government Analyst K. Sivaraja told the "Sunday Observer" that he has not submitted an official report yet and added that it was too early to say whether the destruction was due to TNT. " Senior Assistant Government Analyst (Explosives) W. D. G. S. Gunatilleke, who visited the scene had reported that mass destruction might have been due to an explosion of high powered substance", he said. However, he said that the department has to get down rubbles from the scene for an examination to determine the actual cause of the havoc. |
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