Two separate blasts in Murshidabad and Malda town rocked West Bengal in the last 24 hours. While three people making bombs were injured in a crude bomb blast in Malda district late on Wednesday night, the second blast took place in Murshidabad district in a beedi factory on Thursday morning.
Even as the people and the State administration were recovering from the shock of the twin blasts, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) recovered a sack full of Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) from a house in Burdwan.
“The NIA investigators recovered the IEDs when they were searching the house of one Rezaul Karim along with the Burdwan district police,” NIA officials said.
During the search of the house located at Mathpara on Badshahi Road near Khagragarh where the explosion on October 2 killed two persons, the NIA men found some sacks and a hand grenade fell out from one of them.
National Security Guard (NSG) personnel, who are assisting the NIA in the case, were immediately called in and the NSG men along with their sniffer dogs found at least 40 improvised hand grenades in the sacks.
The house was immediately cordoned off by the police and the NSG team is assisting the NIA investigators in safe disposal of the IEDs as the area in which they have been found is thickly populated.
Rezaul Karim’s house is one of the three houses used by the blast suspects besides the one where the explosion had taken place on October 2. The CID had earlier searched the house and found some documents while Rezaul has been missing since October 2.
The NIA team also collected swabs for explosive traces from the vehicle of the owner of the house where the blast took place and seized a laptop from a ground floor shop at the blast site. Questioning of the accused continued on Thursday and some important leads are being followed.
On the basis of information provided by the accused, one person was summoned for questioning in Birbhum. A computer, which might have been used for communication, was also seized from a shop in Birbhum.
Apart from recovering the IEDs, the NIA on Thursday also seized a motorbike used by Kader Sheikh, an accused in the Burdwan blast, while three persons were detained for questioning.
The red motorbike without a number plate was found at the house of Kader’s relative in Jai Krishnapur village under Ausgram police station, about 40 km from Burdwan town. Kader, the absconding brother-in-law of Kausar Sheikh who is stated to be the mastermind of the Burdwan blast, used to come to the Khagragarh house on that motorbike to collect IEDs manufactured there. Kader, along with two others, had come to Jai Krishnapur on October 2, around two hours after the blast took place.
An NSG team conducted a search with sniffer dogs in and around an abandoned madarsa in connection with the Burdwan blast. They suspect that the madarsa was a training camp for terrorists as they recovered tape recorders, wires, timer devices and chemicals from the site.
The police said that Ziaul Sheikh and his son Nawab Sheikh of Hatichapa village under Baishnabnagar police station in Malda were injured on Wednesday evening when they, along with some others, were allegedly trying to make bombs in the house of one Murshed Sheikh, who is reported to be the brother of a local TMC leader.
Police said before they could reach the spot the two injured persons were shifted by their accomplices, but one of the injured has been arrested. State police are claiming that these blasts were due to rivalry between two criminal groups, but a link with the October 2 Burdwan blast is suspected.
“We have information about the incident. Murshed Sheikh is absconding after the incident and a search is on to trace his whereabouts. A police team has already rushed to the spot to investigate the matter,” District Additional Superintendent of Police, Abhishek Modi said.
The Murshidabad bomb blast took place at a house used to manufacture beedis at Shamsherganj in the early hours on Thursday. According to the police, no one was injured in the incident but the compound wall of the house was damaged.
Reacting to the NIA probe in the Burdwan case, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in a Facebook post said: “Now-a-days, the Central Government tends to frequently and unnecessarily interfere in State matters what is not at all expected as per our Constitution.”