Bombs kept for disposal inside a store room of a police station in North Dinajpur district of northern Bengal went off grievously injuring three policemen on Sunday, sources said.
The incident occurred at about 11 am in the morning inside the store room of Itahaar police station some 20 km off Raiganj the district headquarters, S Ghosh, a local SDP said adding investigations were on.
The bombs had been recovered during a recent raid in the nearby villages and were kept for disposal inside the store room.
Among those injured were Sub-Inspector of Police Paran Mondal, Assistant Sub-Inspector of Police Dipankar Chakraborty and a Monirul Islam a member of the civic volunteer force, sources said adding all the three were undergoing treatment at district hospital in Raiganj.
The Sunday’s incident is a grim reminder of recent incidents of political clashes in various parts of the State leading to unearthing of thousands of crude bombs from Birbhum, Murshidabad, Malda South 24 Parganas, Hooghly, Burdwan and other districts.
This apart at least 19 people have lost their lives in various places while making bombs in factories. Two of those incidents occurred at Pingla in West Midnapore and Katwa on Burdwan districts.
While a 16 people died at Pingla where the case was allegedly hushed up by the police even as the Government sources passed things off as an accident in a fire cracker factory three people died at a village in Katwa sub-division of Burdwan.
Reacting to the recent bomb blasts and recovery of crudes from various places Congress leader Abdul Mannan said, “Bengal is sitting on powder keg and the whole State may go up in flames during the Assembly elections, thanks to the ruling Trinamool Congress which is allowing the State to go into the hands of goons.”
CPI(M)’s Sujan Chakrabarty said, “if the Election Commission does not take note of this then a disaster will happen in Bengal. The recent firings and bombings in various colleges in the State and the rampant violence unleashed by the Trinamool in the recently called bandh is a case in point.”