State, Centre blame each other over bomb blast at WB station

New Delhi: Ahead of the assembly polls in West Bengal, the situation turned grimmer and nastier with the bomb blast at a railway station in the state. After the Chief Minister and ruling Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee alleged it was a 'part of a conspiracy', as one of her cabinet ministers Jakir Hossain got injured, now the Centre has called the incident 'a result of an internal feud among the cadres of the ruling TMC and Left'.

The ministry officials said, "This incident is prima facie a result of political rivalry between the TMC and the CPI, and may have some links to the internal feud among the TMC cadres."

The officials further avouched that CPI had organised protests near the state secretariat Nabanna last week, where police had to resort to Lathi charge to control the crowd. One CPI member had succumbed to injuries sustained in this lathi-charge, due to which there was an environment of tension in the area. Hence, CPI had further called for Rail Roko on Thursday morning as a mark of protest.

Also, Hossain had defeated CPI-M candidate Somnath Singh Rai in the last assembly election, the ministry officials mentioned.

When contacted, CPI-M leader Sujan Chakraborty said, "It is very unfortunate to know that the Centre is unclear about the 'real' facts behind the incident. They must go with the investigation instead of getting into political blame-game."

Indian Railways condemned the incident, issuing an official statement. It also accused the state law and order system and mentioned in its statement that "Law and order is a state subject and state police is fully responsible for the same. Law and order on Railway platforms is also under the purview of GRP of state government."

West Bengal Minister Jakir Hossain and 25 others were injured after some unidentified attackers hurled crude bombs at them at Nimtita railway station, in Murshidabad district, on Wednesday night. The incident occurred around 10.20 pm. Hossain, the minister of state for labour, was waiting on Platform No. 2 to catch a train to Kolkata when he was attacked.

Meanwhile, the state government handed over the investigation to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Thursday. The GRP have also registered a case no. 05/2021 dated 17.02.2021 u/s- 307,326 and 120b of IPC.