Kolkata| The death toll in a blast at an ‘illegal’ firecracker factory at Egra in East Midnapore district on Tuesday has risen to nine. Thirteen seriously injured people are undergoing treatment at a local hospital.
Meanwhile, the locals protested after some senior police officers of the district reached the spot on Tuesday evening. There was also a heated exchange of words and scuffles between the protesters and the police.
The protesters alleged that it is because of the connivance of the local police that such illegal firecracker factories are opening up in the area close to the Bengal-Odisha border.
However, a large police force present there quickly brought the situation under control.
Meanwhile, West Bengal BJP President Sukant Majumdar has written to Union Home Minister Amit Shah demanding a National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe into the matter.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has also said that she has no objection to the NIA probe into the matter.
Majumdar claimed that the impact of the explosion showed that it was not an ordinary firecracker explosion.
“We suspect that crude bombs were being made in the factory,” he said.
As police suspect that the owner of the illegal firecracker factory Krishnapad Bagh may have fled to Odisha, officials from the Criminal Investigation Department of the West Bengal Police have contacted their counterparts in Odisha and alerted them about the same.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Chief Minister said that Baig was arrested in October last year on charges of running an illegal firecracker factory.
Mamta Banerjee said, the police had also filed a charge sheet against her. But the court granted him bail. After this, he again started an illegal firecracker factory in the area near the Bengal-Odisha border
