‘Narrow escape’: Man says Reliance LYF phone exploded, tweets picture

A man associated with former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah's party said on Sunday his family "narrowly escaped" when a smartphone by LYF - a range bundled with the Reliance Jio network - exploded and caught fire.

Tanvir Sadiq, who describes himself on Twitter as the political secretary to the working president of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, posted photographs of his charred LYF phone. The official handle of LYF Smartphones responded: "Sorry for the inconvenience caused… As discussed we are investigating on this."

The incident comes a month after Samsung scrapped its new flagship Galaxy Note 7 smartphone following several reports of fires in its devices. The South Korean giant pulled the plug on the device in what could be among the costliest product safety failures.

Abdullah also wrote about the incident on Twitter.

Reliance's LYF issued a statement shortly after Sadiq tweeted about the incident. "LYF range of phones are designed and manufactured with global standards by some of the world's leading manufacturers of mobile phones… We are concerned about the incident reported in social media and are taking the matter seriously. We are assessing the cause and will conduct a thorough investigation in the matter," it said.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the agency responsible for air safety standards in India, recently banned Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 phones on airplanes citing safety concerns.

Earlier in August, a man posted pictures of his charred OnePlus 1 smartphone on Twitter after he said it caught fire while charging. The company later offered to replace his device with a new OnePlus 3 handset.

Consumer devices safety regulator Bureau of Indian Standards recently refrained from answering a query by Hindustan Times over how Samsung Note 7 batteries were approved in India.

The norm is that all consumer electric devices, especially smartphones, have to be certified by the BIS before going on sale. The batteries are tested first and later the handsets.