Bengal illegal firecracker factory blast: Another body recovered, toll rises to 8

With the recovery of another body, the death toll in the illegal firecracker factory blast at Duttapukur in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district, has risen to eight

Kolkata: With the recovery of another body, the death toll in the illegal firecracker factory blast at Duttapukur in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, has risen to eight.

However, as per local police sources, the foul smell of decomposed bodies indicate that more bodies are buried under the debris. A headless body was recovered this morning and after a search, the severed head was located from the backyard of the illegal unit where the blast took place on Sunday morning.

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“The incident of the head being severed from the body and recovered from the distance gives an estimation of how powerful the impact of the blast was. The police also recovered a severed palm this morning. This severed palm has no connection with the body recovered, since both the palms of the body are intact,” said a local police official who refused to be named.

Meanwhile, tension is still brewing among the locals of the area who are alleging that had the police taken timely action against the illegal firecracker entity, in response to their frequent complaints, so many lives would not have been lost. On Sunday, Governor C.V. Ananda Bose targetted ‘Kanyashree Prakalpa’, a conditional state cash transfer scheme aimed at improving lives of girl children and a pet project of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as he criticised the state government over the blast Bose said that “Kanyashree” will never be successful unless the lives of the “Kanya (daughters)” are secured.

Meanwhile, state BJP president and the party Lok Sabha member Dr Sukanta Majumdar has shot off a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah seeking a National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe in the matter. Trinamool Congress has accused the opposition parties of unnecessarily “politicising the accident”.