Six students were injured in a freak mishap while displaying the mechanism of rocket launching during an exhibition at the Ghatshila College campus in East Singhbhum district, around 170km from Jharkhand’s capital Ranchi on Monday evening.

Five of the injured students were released after treatment while one is still recuperating at the MGM Hospital in Jamshedpur.

According to Ghatshila College principal, R.K. Choudhary, there was a day-long exhibition of models displayed by intermediate, undergraduate and postgraduate students of the college of all streams.

“Over 400 models had been displayed by the students. All the models had been prepared under the observation of the faculty members. There was a crowd of onlookers at the models. In the model displaying the rocket and its launching, there was a blast caused by crackers as one student pressed the wrong button. The injured six students, including two girls, were rushed to Ghatshila sub-divisional hospital and from there two students were referred to MGM Hospital in Jamshedpur,” said Choudhary.

The principal further informed that five of the students had recovered and simultaneously discharged from their respective health centres while one is still recuperating at the MGM Hospital. The principal further said that students had used chemicals used in the laboratory for the launch of the rocket.

“We will be probing into the incident so that such things do not happen in future,” said Choudhary.

Sources at the college said there were two switches in the rocket. On pressing the first button, the rocket used to fly to some height while pressing the second button led to the bursting of crackers and the release of the parachute for an emergency landing.

A student mistakenly pressed the detonation button instead of pressing the button to launch the rocket.

The weight of the rocket was 2 kg. Ghatshila block development officer Kumar S. Abhinav who was present at the spot as the chief guest sent the injured students to hospitals as soon as the incident happened.