Huge quantities of firecrackers seized, at least 55 arrested

Kolkata: Police seized a huge quantity of banned firecrackers during raids in different locations in Bengal and arrested several people for their alleged involvement in running illegal manufacturing factories, a police official said on Tuesday.

The raids, which started on Monday, continued in the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday night.

Raids were conducted at Belgharia and Rahara under Barrackpore City Police, Duttapukur and Amdanga in North 24-Parganas, at Krishnanagar in Nadia and in four places of the Howrah rural area.

On Monday evening, cops of Belgharia Police Station conducted a raid at the Vivekananda Nagar area where a man identified as Tinku Majumder had stored a huge quantity of banned crackers at his house. During the raid about 180 kg of crackers were seized and the owner of the house was arrested. Also, another raid was held at a house in Rahara from where 500 kg of banned crackers were seized.

In North 24-Parganas, during a raid at a house in Duttapukur about 20 tons of banned crackers were seized.

However, the owner of the cracker factory Ibadat Mondal was not there at the time of the police raid. Cops of Amdanga Police Station raided a house in the Hamidpur area and seized about 31 kg of banned crackers.

Meanwhile, Howrah Rural District Police conducted raids at Joypur, Rajapur, Panchla and Jagatballavpur areas on Monday night and seized about 200 kg of banned crackers.

“So far we have seized nearly 34,000 kg of explosives and banned firecrackers and arrested 55 people for allegedly storing them and running their businesses. These arrests were made during last night’s raids,” a police official said.

Reportedly, the state Tuesday decided to close down the ‘Bazi Bazar’ at Haral in the Baruipur area of South 24-Parganas district, an official said.

All the traders there have been asked to deposit raw materials in their possession with the local police station as a precaution, he added.

The raids were conducted in the backdrop of incidents of blasts at illegal firecracker manufacturing units in rural Bengal during the past eight days.

At least 16 people were killed in Bengal in three incidents of blasts and a fire which broke out at a godown in Malda district. According to reports, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is slated to hold a meeting with traders from Haral at the state secretariat after her government’s decision to set up clusters of firecracker manufacturing units.

Banerjee on Monday had formed a committee led by the Chief Secretary for identifying land parcels across the state for developing clusters of green firecrackers. The committee has been asked to submit a report within two months. The committee has officials from Finance, Home, MSME, Fire, Environment, Panchayat, Municipal Affairs among others.