Cops disarm gun-wielding man, foils hostage bid at school in Malda district

 A man was arrested from a High School in Malda district on Wednesday after he barged into one of the classrooms with a pistol, petrol bomb and a sharp weapon tucked in his socks and threatened to take the students hostage.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who was holding an administrative meeting in Kolkata at the time, came out to compliment the police for averting what is being seen as a potential school hostage crisis which could have turned ugly, akin to incidents of hostage shoot-outs in US educational campuses. She also claimed that it was a ‘deep-rooted conspiracy by the Centre’.

“The man entered the classroom suddenly and threatened to hold students hostage. Who dinned the very idea of creating such a hostage crisis in him?” she asked.

Panic gripped the students after the man threatened to blow up the classroom in Muchia Chandramohan High School under the Malda Police Station on Wednesday if ‘his son and wife were not returned to him.’

At gunpoint, he threatened to kill the students and detonate himself as a human bomb. Around 70 students of class 7 and teachers had a harrowing time as the gun-wielding man continued with his threats.

A huge contingent of police led by Pradeep Kumar Yadav, Superintendent of Police, Malda, reached the spot wearing bulletproof jackets. The police soon managed to overpower the man.

According to police sources, the name of the accused is Deb Ballabh (48 years) of Nimua village under the Muchia Gram Panchayat of Old Malda block. A 9 mm pistol, several rounds of

cartridges, four petrol

bombs, a sharp weapon and several other electric bombs (attached to his body) were recovered from him.

Yadav said: “The arrested person has a family problem. However, no one could imagine that he would enter the school and commit such a crime. Several firearms and chemicals were recovered from the accused. Details can be revealed only after the forensic examination. However, the person named as accused Deb Ballabh has been arrested. Nothing can be said clearly about his mental condition. All matters are subject to investigation. Currently, the situation is under control.”

Preliminary investigation revealed that the accused entered the classroom and demanded to get back his son Rudra Ballabh, studying in the twelfth grade and his wife Rita Ballabh. The arrested man’s wife and son had been estranged from him for the past year. However, the man had claimed that miscreants had abducted his wife.

In the past, the accused had posted video clips of himself, with a gun in his hand, while narrating the alleged abduction of his wife and son on social media. He was then arrested and the weapons were recovered from him.