Five persons were injured in a blast at the house of former Samajwadi Party MLA Vijay Singh in western Uttar Pradesh’s Farrukhabad on Wednesday morning.

Singh is serving a life term in connection with the murder of former cabinet minister and then BJP MLA Brahm Dutt Dwivedi in 1997.

“There were six people in the house when the blast took place. Five of them suffered injuries and were admitted to a hospital, where their condition is stable,” Farrukhabad superintendent of police Arti Singh said.

She said a portion of the three-storey house collapsed following the explosion.

“We have launched an investigation to ascertain the cause of the explosion and are examining the scene to determine how the incident occurred,” she added.

Dwivedi was shot dead in February 1997 in Farrukhabad. His murder had set off a series of gang wars in the state and spawned several hardcore criminals.

The murder case was handed over to the CBI, which concluded that Vijay Singh, along with his gangster friend Sanjeev Maheshwari and contract killer Sri Prakash Shukla, had shot dead Dwivedi and his security guard Brij Kishore.

The Uttar Pradesh police gunned down Shukla in September 1998.

Singh and Maheshwari were found guilty by a trial court and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2003.

Dwivedi had represented the Farrukhabad Assembly seat as a BJP member in 1977, 1985, 1991, 1993 and 1996. Singh won the seat as an Independent in 2002 and 2012 and as an SP candidate in 2007 while he was out on bail. Singh went back to jail in 2017 after Allahabad High Court upheld the trial court’s order and quashed his bail.

Currently, Dwivedi’s son Sunil Dutt Dwivedi is the BJP MLA from Farrukhabad.

The police said Singh’s sons Avinash and Abhishek, grandchildren Ishu and Rashu and panchayat leader Bhaiyya Lal were injured in the blast.

“The condition of Bahiyya Lal is serious,” district magistrate Ashutosh Kumar Dwivedi said.

“The explosion took place in the basement of the building. We have called forensic experts,” he added.