In what could give some prior indication to the Election Commission of the prevailing situation in Birbhum district ahead of April 30 general elections, several alleged Trinamool Congress men were blown into pieces when bombs, allegedly, they were preparing at a house went off accidentally, police said.
While local SP insisted the numbers of death were only two, the locals said they had seen about 20 people inside the house of a local Trinamool leader SK Ismail, where they were making bombs purportedly to be used against the Opposition during the elections.
“Such was the impact of the blasts that the tin roof flew off 150 metres into a pond and some motorcycles were tossed about 20 metres away,” said an eyewitness adding the miscreants who were not injured, dragged out other bodies.
“Two corpses with their lower portions completely torn off were found about 100 metre inside a paddy field,” a terrified local said adding those who were making bombs were outsiders and had been brought in by the followers of Trinamool MlA Munirul Islam.
Islam, had hours before, apologised to the Election Commission for publicly directing the party workers not to allow the Opposition voters to cast their votes.It was in the same district that saw a gang of Trinamool men hacking SK Hiralal, a CPI(M) leader, to death a few days ago. Both the incidents have been reported to the Commission, police said.
Birbhum had been hitting the headlines since its district Trinamool president Anubrata Mandal publicly directed his men to torch the houses of the Opposition camp and bomb police vehicles during panchayat elections. Curiously a rebel party member was shot dead two days later after his public speech.
While Mandal is named as accused number one in the FIR he has not yet been arrested even as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has openly promised to stand by his side.Meanwhile, the Congress, the BJP and left leaders on Monday met Special Observer seeking his intervention to thwart booth capturing “as it happened in the first phase in Coochbehar.”