Journospy Exclusive 
By Soumitra Nandi
Kolkata: Fire crackers or bombs what were the things that triggered the explosion at village Brahmanbar at Pingla, in West  Midnapore that killed 12 people and injured  4 on Wednesday night, this question has been talk of the sleuths as well as the political parties in West Bengal.

The state government has ruled out the presence of any explosives with the state CID taking up the probe of the case from Thursday evening. “Our preliminary investigation has revealed that the blast was caused due to firecracker explosion. What is being misunderstood as splinters are nothing but small stone-chip like things that is piled with certain chemicals for manufacturing sound crackers,” said Dilip Adak, DIG, CID (Operations) who visited the site along with senior district police officials on Friday.

However, a section of forensic experts who visited the spot said such was the intensity of the blast that the bodies that had been found were severely mutilated. “Body parts were found rising and getting stuck amidst bamboo trees that lay adjacent to the building that exploded.

We have collected samples from the spot and only after thorough examination it can be ascertained what triggered the blast.  We doubt whether it was only firecrackers that caused such a blast that killed so many people.” Said an official of Central Forensic Science Laboratory on condition of anonymity.

The owner of the firecracker unit Ranjan Maity was arrested on Thursday and was charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder.” The manufacturing of such firecrackers are illegal. He was running the unit illegally,” IG (Western Range) Siddhinath Gupta said.
The persons killed including four children hails from Suti in Murshidabad district who were roped in for work in the unit. The locals blamed the police for the incident.” We had told the police repeatedly about the running of this business in an illegal way. But no action was taken. Ranjan Maity is a member of the ruling party and the police took no action. His six other brothers too are involved in this business. They should be arrested too”, Said a villager of Brahmanbar.

The leader of the opposition in the state SuryaKanta Mishra visited the blast site on Friday with the locals venting their grievances to him. “The villagers are alleging that death toll is at least 20. A lot of dead bodies and evidences too have been removed in the night by the police itself to give it a stamp of firecracker explosion. We have no trust in the CID which runs at the instruction of the state chief minister. We want a probe that should be monitored by the court,” Mishra said.

BJP state president, Rahul Sinha also visited the spot on Friday. He said, “We demand an NIA probe in the matter. The prime minister will be in the state on Saturday.  I will brief him about the incident and will press for NIA probe.”

“We have seen ammonia powder and empty drums of nitro glycerin at the site, They are not used for making firecrackers but powerful bombs,” alleged Babla Roy, the general secretary of Fire Crackers Association in the state.

“The chief minister has ordered CID probe in the case. We have full faith in the. Let the opposition say whatever they want,” said Partha Chatterjee, the state education minister.