An initial investigation revealed that in the beginning of this month at Pokhran in Rajasthan, the explosion that occurred during the field trial of the long distance very light howitzer M-777 gun in the army, was due to the poor ammunition.

On September 2, the US-made guns were broken at the time when the Indian ammunition was being tested.

Sources said that initial investigations have revealed that the explosion was due to supply of heavy ammunition from the Armed Forces Board. Further investigations are ongoing in this case.

"Such a failure can be due to any complex incident related to internal ballistic, because the sphere revolves around a very fast speed," said Uddipan Mukherjee, spokesman of the Ordinance Factory Board.

He said that the quality of the shells is not the only reason, but there may be such defaults for many reasons.

Without making any specific comment about the findings of the investigation, he said that the quality of the shells used in the M777 gun was tested.

It is noteworthy that nearly 30 years after the Bofors scandal was exposed, India had got two extremely mild Howitzer guns in May. Their cost was Rs 35 crores and an accident occurred during the test of one of the guns.

Army sources said that the barrel of the cannon was damaged in the blast.

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