Even as the Union Home Ministry demanded an immediate report from the Bengal Government over Monday’s low-intensity blast near the CRPF office at Salt lake which also houses a temporary office of the National Investigation Agency which was currently on the threshold of cracking the October 2 Burdwan blast case, there seemed to be a difference of opinion between the Bengal Police and the NIA over the nature of Monday’s explosion.
While the NIA sources said that the low-intensity blast was like a warning shot fired by the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) to stop the Central agency from going too deep into the Burdwan blast case that also exposed a JMB plot to assassinate Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and its Opposition leader Khaleda Zia, the State police refused to take it seriously, saying the blast was probably the handiwork of some mischief-monger who could have burst a firecracker to create a sensation in the area.
The NIA exposed a deep terror conspiracy while probing the Burdwan blast which also brought to light an elaborate network of sleeper cells working from a number of Bengal madrasas. The NIA sources said that the Monday’s was intended at “intimidating” the Agency while Bidhannagar Police Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said there were reasons to believe that “someone might have caused mischief by throwing fire crackers as prima facie there was no smell to suggest that it was an IED or the residue gathered from the blast site did not resemble materials that are used for IED explosives.” He however said final information on the nature of the blast could be given by the forensic experts after through probe.
Incidentally the BJP central observer for Bengal Siddharthnath Singh also made statements resembling that of the NIA when he said that the blast outside the CRPF camp was a “message to the NIA to go slow on the Burdwan probe.” By triggering the Monday’s low intensity blast the militants also tended to communicate that every place, even the NIA office as also the terrorists who have been arrested by it were within their reach.
Attacking the ruling Trinamool Congress for bringing the State to such a pass the BJP MP alleged that the Trinamool had a nexus with the Bangla terror outfit adding “There are reports in leading newspapers of Bangladesh quoting their intelligence agencies to this effect.” In a no-holds-barred attack on the Bengal ruling outfit he quoted national newspapers and Intelligence Bureau of Bangladesh saying that the Trinamool had gone into a triple entente with Jamaat, and the BNP both of which had backed its cause in the last Assembly elections.
Pointing at how the Trinamool garnered 45 out of 75 seats with the help of the Bangla parties in the border districts of Bengal during the elections he said time had come when the Trinamool Congress should explain its conduct. Curiously Singh’s attacking statement came on a day when sources quoting the NIA said that the State Government did nothing even after being alerted by the Malda Police about Zia ul Haq an arrested JMB mole and a Goureshwar Madarsa teacher who had lectured the students on Jehad during the Independence Day celebrations.