A second blast rocked Pingla in a span of seven days at the same spot where at least 12 people had died on Wednesday last when bombs stock-piled in an alleged fire-cracker factory went off accidentally. Pingla is in West Midnapore once a hot bed of Maoist movement.
The blast on Thursday occurred when a set of civil society members were visiting the spot which had been under the CID protection for the past one week. None was however injured in the blast.
The police and the CID had parroted Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s contention who had told a party conference in Kolkata within hours of the last week’s blast that “it was a fire in a cracker factory” while the forensic experts had wondered as to how body parts could be thrown 200 metres away and climb sixty feet on tree tops in a cracker factory fire.
Bharati Mutsuddi a civil society member who was witness to the Thursday’s blast said “the Government is trying to hide a deep-rooted conspiracy as it did during the Khagragarh blast.”
State Opposition leader Suryakanto Mishra said it was for the Chief Minister who is also the Home Minister to answer how the second blast took place where according to her a fire cracker factory was functioning. BJP demanded an NIA investigation into the blast.
Congress MP Pradip Bhattacharya had already written to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh demanding an NIA probe.