Malda blast: BJP demands central intervention, TMC accuses it of communalising incident

KOLKATA: Opposition BJP in West Bengal Friday demanded central intervention in the Malda blast case and alleged that the state has turned into a hub of illegal bomb-making factory under the TMC rule.

The ruling Trinamool Congress retorted sharply accusing the BJP of trying to communalise the issue before the 2021 state polls.

Six persons were killed in a blast in a plastic factory at Sujapur in Malda district on Thursday.

This had trigerred a political slugfest with BJP demanding a NIA probe into it and the TMC asking it not to politicize the issue.

"We think there is a need for central intervention in Malda blast probe. Only central agencies can probe the matter impartially. The state police, instead of probing the matter will try to hush it up," state BJP president Dilip GHosh said.

"The culprits behind this blast should be identified and punished," he told reporters here.

Wondering why regular incidents of blasts are taking place "only in Bengal", Ghosh alleged that the state has turned into a hub of illegal bomb-making factory in the state.

"Bomb blasts have become a regular affair in West Bengal. Every other day, there is an incident of bomb blast in the state. The state has become a hub of illegal bomb-making factory during the TMC rule," he said.

BJP national general secretary and Bengal minder Kailash Vijayvargiya Thursday said the party will write to the union home ministry requesting it for an NIA probe to bring out the truth.

The Mamata Banerjee-headed TMC, which had already ruled out the need for an NIA probe, accused BJP of trying to communalize the issue ahead of the assembly polls.

"BJP is trying to communalize the issue ahead of the assembly polls. A few years ago a similar blast has taken place inside a chemical factory in Gujarat. Few people had died and several others were injured. We didn't try to find any terror angle in it," West Bengal minister Bratya Basu said.

"There is no need to communalize an accident just because state elections are approaching. The BJP wants communal polarisation in Bengal," he siad.

Assembly polls in the state are due in April-May 2021.

"Accidents do happen, but whenever any accident takes place in Bengal, the BJP tries to politicise the issue," Basu said.

A BJP delegation led by Shreerupa Mitra Chowdhury is in Sujapur in Malda to meet the family members of the blast victim.

They were stopped by the police from visiting the blast site.

Sleuths of the West Bengal Special Task Force (STF) and forensic experts on Friday visited the plastic recycling factory at Sujapur where the explosion had taken place and collected samples from the site.