A grocery store destroyed by a blast that killed five may have been the site of an illegal distillery, it was claimed yesterday.
One line of inquiry police are understood to be investigating is whether vodka or other spirits were being distilled illegally at the Leicester shop.
Officers were seen carrying evidence bags out of a property belonging to the shopkeeper, 33-year-old Aram Kurd.
Roz Rowett, who lives in Leicester, said on Facebook: ‘I’ve heard someone was making vodka and it exploded? Don’t know how true it is though … RIP to all that have lost their lives.’
The home of Aram Kurd, the owner of the shop destroyed in a blast, is being searched by police. It is claimed the grocery store may have been the site of an illegal distillery
Police carrying bags of items were seen leaving the property in Leicester on Thursday morning
Neighbours say they have not seen Mr Kurd since Tuesday. Police declined to say whether he is one of three men arrested
Landlord Hardeep Singh, 45, said he had inspected the shop after it had been refitted by Mr Kurd in December prior to his new business opening and said everything appeared to be in order – but he said he did not inspect the shop’s basement, which was ‘the size of the entire ground floor’.
Police would not comment on the claims, which came as they were granted more time to question three suspects.
Neighbours have told how Mr Kurd, who also goes by the name Aram Alan on Facebook and is a keen bodybuilder, has not been seen since Tuesday.
The previous day, he had told reporters how he had a miracle escape from the collapsing building after the shop exploded while he was fetching beer from a rear storeroom on Sunday night.
Mr Kurd said he was able to scramble out into a rear alleyway – but his colleague Viktorija Ijevleva, 22, is missing, presumed dead.
Those living in the flat above – Mary Ragoobar, 46, who worked at the King Richard III Visitor Centre, and her sons Shane, 18, and Sean, 17 – are also believed to have died, along with Shane’s girlfriend, Leah Reek, 18, from Melton Mowbray.
Pictured:Krishna Rungen said his brother-in-law lived at the address with his wife Mary (centre) and her three sons
Missing feared dead: Leah Reek, 18, pictured left with boyfriend Shane and shop worker Viktorija Ljevleva have not been found
An aerial view of the scene of the explosion in Leicester, where five people died and a three-storey building was demolished
A neighbour of Mr Kurd and his girlfriend Akvile Martinkute, 31, said the shopkeeper was last seen returning to his home in Braunstone on Tuesday night. He added: ‘He was gone again by the morning. On Wednesday a police car turned up outside his house at around 4pm and then his girlfriend turned up in his car later, not with him though.
‘They [police] have been in and out with evidence bags.
‘I didn’t even know Aram owned the shop until a few days ago. I would always see him in coming back from the gym, so I thought he must be a personal trainer.’
A police spokesman has said that the three men being held are from the East Midlands, East Anglia and the North West and are all in their 30s.
Last night it also emerged that Miss Ijevleva was due to stand trial alongside three other men in Norwich this June on a charge of defrauding UK customs, related to an allegation of tobacco smuggling.
A friend of the business management graduate said she had moved to the UK from Latvia with her mother and younger sister. It is understood she married in an Islamic ceremony around four years ago.
Mary Ragoobar (pictured), 46, and sons Shane, 18, and Sean, 17, have not been seen since a suspected gas blast destroyed their apartment above a Polish grocery store
Mr Kurd has appeared on television describing how he was chatting to her in the shop when the blast ripped through the store.
He said: ‘I was holding her iPhone at the time of the explosion as we had been watching YouTube videos.
‘I don’t know how it happened … I found myself up and then to the floor, for two or three minutes I couldn’t feel anything.’
‘I managed to pull [myself] from the rubble and climbed into the neighbouring garden.’
In 2011, five Lithuanian men were killed in an explosion at an illegal vodka distillery on an industrial estate in Boston, Lincolnshire. An inquest later heard the blast was probably caused by one of them lighting a cigarette.