KOLKATA: Five children were injured after a group of miscreants hurled crude bombs at them for being caught stockpiling them. The youngsters received splinter injuries. The incident happened at Narendrapur in South 24 Parganas, where the boys spotted a mud hut where some miscreants were stockpiling crude bombs, and peeped through the holes in the wall out of curiosity, police said.
“The minor boys, while playing, went close to the hut and noticed the illegal activities. The suspects first asked the boys to go home, but the curious teenagers continued to roam around the hut. Suddenly the miscreants hurled bombs at them,” an officer of Narendrapur police station said. As the news of the attack spread, representatives of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) visited the spot and met the injured minors and their family members.
Meanwhile, local residents told the police that there is rivalry between two groups of the ruling Trinamool Congress and the stockpile of crude bombs was a part of it.The injured minors are Arnab Haldar (13), Surya Chowdhury (13), Bikram Naskar (12), Suman Das (12) and Laltu Auddy (13). They were taken to the nearby Baghajatin State General Hospital for treatment.
“The locals have alleged that the president of TMC’s Sonarpur panchayat samiti, Prabir Sarkar, and a member of the local panchayat, Basudeb Mondal, are involved in long-standing rivalry over the issue of controlling the area dotted with waterbodies and wetlands. The rivalry surfaced over organising Jagadhhatri puja in the area which is under Mondal’s control, and Sarkar is desperate to establish his dominance,” a police officer said.
Mondal alleged that Sarkar’s followers demolished the puja pandal on Friday morning, and later in the evening, they hurled bombs to create unrest in the area. Sarkar, however, refuted the allegation
CPM’s South 24 Parganas district secretary Shamik Lahiri said that the state is being run by miscreants now, and even children are not being spared.The police has arrested seven persons so far and seized a huge cache of crude bombs.