Jalandhar, Dec 3 (IANS) Army authorities Wednesday launched an investigation into Tuesday evening’s blast in an army truck that left four soldiers dead in Jalandhar cantonment in Punjab.
Army officials claimed the soldiers were killed when the battery of an under maintenance five-tonne truck exploded at the motor transport section of an artillery unit of the 11 Corps stationed here.

The soldiers were from the 20 SATA battery of the army artillery based here. The area was cordoned off soon after the blast.

Police, however, here said an explosion in a vehicle battery could not be so powerful to kill four people. A police officer said three of the victims died instantly while the fourth died in the hospital.

Defence spokesman Naresh Vig Wednesday said the army probe into the explosion had started. “This is an internal inquiry of the army,” he said.

Vig added that the postmortem of the bodies had been done at the army hospital here.

Ruling out any sabotage, army officials said the soldiers were unloading some equipment when the explosion took place in Jalandhar cantonment, some 150 km from Chandigarh.

The 11 Corps headquartered here is the frontier unit of the army looking after the western frontier of India with Pakistan. It is under the Western Command.