Eight-year-old Anshu rushes inside his single-room home to get a mobile phone so that he could show a photo of his late mother, Madhabi Bag. The 33-year-old mother was among those who died in the explosion at Khadikul village under Egra 1 block of West Bengal’s Purba Medinipur district on May 16.
On Thursday, nearly 48 hours after the explosion which rocked the picturesque village with an abundance of fruit trees and birds, several children in the village are in their white mourning clothes. Akash, 13, in a white dhoti, said that when he heard the explosion, he thought they were “checking bombs” but when he went out, he saw flames everywhere.
A child shows on a smartphone the photo of his mother who died during an explosion at an illegal cracker manufacturing unit at Khadirul village in West Bengal’s Purba Medinipur district. | Photo Credit: Debasish Bhaduri
Anshu and Akash are not the only children who have lost their mother; five of the nine persons killed in the explosion at the illegal cracker manufacturing unit were women. Madhabi Bag had joined the illegal cracker manufacturing unit three months ago and was paid ₹200 a day, her husband Sanjib Bag said. “The factory owners had seen her working and asked her to join the unit,” he said, adding that there was no employment to be found in the village other than agricultural work, and work under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) had stopped.
The other women who died in the explosion at Khadikul have been identified as Shyamashree Maity, Kavita Bag, Minati Maity and Ambika Maity, all in their thirties and forties, leaving young children behind.
Pinky Maity, the youngest of the women at 26, is fighting for her life at the SSKM Hospital in Kolkata. Her eight-year-old son, Subharanjan, is staying at a neighbour’s house in the village. He said his mother took up the job after his father, who was working in the same unit, took ill.
The house next to the illegal cracker making unit is that of Jayanti Maity. The 52-year- old woman said that Krishnapada Bag alias Bhanu Bag had offered work to her as well as her daughters-in-law. “I had advised Minati against working there but she did not listen,” Jayanti Maity’s daughter-in-law Belarani Maity said.
Suma Jana (in green with her son beside her), the wife of Jayanta Jana who had died during an explosion at an illegal cracker manufacturing unit at Khadirul village in West Bengal’s Purba Medinipur district. | Photo Credit: Debasish Bhaduri
Both women — Jayanti and Belarani — witnessed the blast at about 12 noon on May 16. “ The window panes of our house came crashing down. It was raining fire as objects from the factory were landing in the fields. We ran for our lives, leaving our cattle behind,” she said.
The elaborate structure of the unit has been blown to pieces, parts of its roof and walls are scattered in the nearby paddy fields. Even 48 hours after the explosion, the bomb disposal squad of the West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department was collecting sacks full of material from the explosion site.
Several villagers at Khadikul did not hesitate to point out that under the garb of manufacturing crackers, crude bombs were assembled at the illegal unit. A relative of the deceased Kavita Bag also alleged that Bhanu Bag exerted his influence, forcing people to work in his unit. Behind the illegal unit is a large pond that some locals claimed was used for storing the bombs in a cool place. After the explosion on May 16, several bodies had to be fished out from the pond.
Not the first
This isn’t the first time that Khadikul has been rocked by explosions. There were explosions at illegal units operated by Bhanu Bag in 1995 and 2001 as well. On one such explosion, a former Trinamool Congress panchayat member lost his brother but the illegal units continued functioning. Less than 100 metres from the site of the May 16 explosion, a few policemen guard the house that was the site of an explosion in 2001.
According to the police, the prime accused, Bhanu Bag, was arrested and released on bail. He, too, sustained injures in the blast on May 16 and was on Thursday arrested by a CID team from Cuttack, Odisha. The West Bengal Police also arrested his son Pritwijit Bag and his nephew Indrajit Bag and produced them before a court in Purba Medinipur district.
Questions have also been raised over why charges under the Explosive Substances Act were not included in the First Information Report (FIR), even though Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had claimed that she had no issue with the National Investigation Agency taking over the investigation. The FIR registered at the Egra Police Station includes Sections 188, 286, and 304 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and Sections 24 and 26 of the Fire Service Act.
Crude bomb blasts resulting in injuries and even loss of lives of adults and children are not uncommon in West Bengal, and law enforcement agencies frequently seize such bombs.
Purba Medinipur district, which was the epicentre of political violence since the days of the Nandigram movement almost 15 years ago, has seen several explosions in the past. Only six months ago, in December 2022, a blast at Bhupatinagar, about 40 km from Khadikul, took three lives. The explosion at Khadikul, where a majority of the victims are women has, however, exposed another side of the illegal bomb-making industry.
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