A big explosion left an eight-year-old child dead and at least 10 others injured in a crowded area of Nagerabazar in South Dum Dum municipal area in the northern suburbs of Kolkata on Tuesday.
The explosion took place beside a fruit stall and a sweetmeat shop around 9.10 am killing the child who had come to fetch sweets from the shop with her mother, who is currently struggling for her life, an eyewitness said. All the 10 people injured have suffered severe splinter and burn injuries.
The police are trying to find out the source of the explosive device but said it was “anything but a handiwork of petty criminals who do not use such heavy directional bombs.
Ammonium nitrate was stuffed inside a steel socket about 8 inch in radius, CID sources said, adding they did not find any timer, wire or remote control device assuming “pressure could be one of the reasons for the blast.”
A senior officer said, “It was possibly in transit and was kept there in a gunny bag. Perhaps it went off accidentally following tremendous pressure.”
A fruit vendor sitting nearby was also severely injured.
Rajesh Kumar Singh, Barrackopre Commissioner of Police said, “A large explosion took place outside a shop. What caused the explosion is yet to be ascertained. Several people have been injured in the blast,” adding, the police are “investigating the matter. The bomb squad of the CID has taken up the case.”
The police are “not ruling out Maoist or terrorist angle,” sources said.
The intensity of the blast was such that it caused a big hole on the steel shutter of an adjacent shop bending the iron rod and making a similar whole in another shutter bang on the opposite side of the 20-feet wide lane, sources said, adding the glass panes of the multi-storey buildings had been shattered by the impact of the explosion.
While the blast tended to leave the police brass in a tizzy, particularly ahead of the Durga Puja when more than twenty million people will throng the Puja pandals about 7-8 days, the political parties were engaged in a slanging match accusing each other for the incident.
Trinamool leader and Minister Jyotipriya Mullick sniffed an RSS hand in the blast saying “going by their politics it seems that the RSS might have triggered this blast to create tension in the State.” His party colleague and South Dum Dum municipal chairman Panchu Gopal Roy said “everyone knows who killed and who assisted in the killing of Mahatma Gandhi. Today the blast assumes significance because today is Gandhi’s birth anniversary.”
Reacting to his statements, State BJP president Dilip Ghosh accused the TMC workers of triggering the blast. “Everyone knows what the Trinamool Congress cadres are capable of. It is the result of their infighting,” he said demanding an NIA probe.
The National Investigation Agency had already started collecting information about the incident, sources said.
A similar blast at Khagragarh in Burdwan district on October, 2014 had left two persons dead. Subsequent investigation by the NIA had taken the lid off an international network Jamat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh.