However, the police said that the people mainly died of suffocation.

Those killed include five men, two women and three children. The injured have been taken to Thane civil hospital. The condition of some of those injured is stated to be critical.

Police said that due to the explosion, the mezzanine floor of the restaurant caught fire, causing burn and suffocation.

At the time of the blast there were at least 20 people on the mezzanine floor, but on account of the extremely narrow exit, most of the customers were trapped in the smoke and flames.

Those dead have been identified as Makarand Motiram Patil (from Kopri), Rajendra Kulkarni, his wife Vrinda(of Dyan Sadhana College, Thane), daughter Vinda and son Akshay Kulkarni, Mahesh Vasanth Mhatre (27 yrs, Govandi), Rajesh, his four-year-old and one-year-old sons and Aniket Sudhir Pandav (from Mulund, Neelam Nagar).

The police said that the mezzanine floor was an unauthorised construction.

Of the five injured due to severe burns, included two women and three men. The two women, Sanjal and Shobhna Pandav are said to be critical. The three wounded men are Vicky Patil (19), Nilesh V Kaklotkar (23) and Anil Ahuja (19).

Relatives of the Kulkarnis and their colleagues from the DS college where the professor taught chemistry said that she had joined the college a couple of months back only. It was just a month ago that the Kulkarnis had celebrated the first birthday of Akshay, whose father was all along in Dubai.

He recently wound up his establishment in Dubai to come to Thane. The entire family perished in the mishap.

Inspector Madhav Malve of Naupada police station informed that the mezzanine floor wasfully enveloped by thick smoke when the police arrived on the scene, and hence could not do much.

Meanwhile, the police have launched a manhunt to nab the owner of the restaurant Devendra Kumar Wadhwa who is absconding. The Thane Municipal Corporation officials have stated that they had complained against the unauthorised structures of the restaurant for over 20 times in the past but nothing had happened.