200 crude bombs seized & defused

KOUSIK SEN, TT, Jul 19, 2018, Raiganj: Malda district police and the CID have seized over 200 crude bombs during raids in Sailapur under Kaliachak police station since Tuesday afternoon. They have also arrested three persons for allegedly making the bombs and are in search of some others.

On Tuesday, six youths, who were known to be involved in anti-social activities, were making bombs in a bamboo plantation in Sailapur, which is also close to Mahadipur on the India-Bangladesh border. Suddenly, some of the bombs went off and left two of them dead. Four others were injured and are still under treatment at Malda Medical College and Hospital (MMCH).

After the incident, the police and the CID rushed to the spot and started an investigation. They also conducted raids on some places and could recover around 200 bombs.

Police sources said the crude bombs were made by stashing gunpowder, splinters and some other items into small plastic balls.

"Locally, these are known as cocktail bombs. There are reports that such crude bombs were used in Bangladesh to cause minor explosions. Now that so many bombs have been recovered, we are not ruling out the possibility that the group involved in making the bombs have cross-border links and potential clients on the other side of the fence," said a source.

The investigators have said there are private parking spaces near the border at Mahadipur, one of the main transits of goods traffic into Bangladesh from India.

"On a regular basis, trucks are parked on such parking spaces and a section of anti-socials is involved in collecting money in the name of parking fee. For the past few weeks, differences have cropped up between two groups of anti-socials over the possession of such spaces. There in information that one of the groups was making the bombs to organise attack on the other lobby," said a police official.

In course of investigation, the police came to know about Kartick Ghosh, Kamal Ghosh and Biplab Ghosh, all Kaliachak residents and their involvement in making the bombs.

"All the three have been arrested. Our officers will interrogate them to obtain information about the group and why so many bombs were made and stored. They would also try to know the sources from where the groups had obtained the raw material," the official added.

Meanwhile, members of the bomb squad of the CID defused the bombs. The explosives were taken to a deserted location in Kaliachak where experts of the intelligence agency took proper precaution and defused the balls containing explosives.