Kolkata, May 7 (IANS): Alleging that illegal bomb making factories were thriving in all West Bengal districts under the patronage of police, the CPI-M on Thursday claimed the involvement of the Trinamool Congress in Wednesday's killer blast and demanded a court monitored probe into the incident.
"In our state, over extensive areas of all districts and covering almost all police stations, bomb making factories were thriving under the patronage of the police... West Bengal is sitting on a powder keg," Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) state secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra told mediapersons here.
Speaking in the context of Wednesday night's blast in what the police have claimed was a firecracker factory - even as the locals described it as a bomb manufacturing unit - at Brahmanbar village in Pingla area of West Midnapore district, Mishra said his party in the recent past gave a lot of information to the police and administration about houses where such activities were carried out. But police have not taken any action.
Mishra said Left Front leaders and legislators, who rushed to the spot, claimed the casualty figure could be at least 20, even as police claimed that 12 people have died.
"The casualties are more than 20. The number being provided by police is baseless. The house has been razed to the ground. Adjacent villages felt earthquake like tremors. This only shows how powerful the explosion was."
Mishra said such was the impact, that body parts of the victims lay scattered over a wide area, and police collected the pieces and put them in sacks. It is difficult to identify the victims, as one's hand has got entangled with another's leg.
"What happened is unprecedented. Such high casualties have not been reported in the recent past. It is a cause for concern... unprecedented," he said.
Training his guns on the Trinamool, he said: "The ruling party is involved. The owner of the house is a Trinamool leader. The person who had rented the room has died in the explosion along with his wife. Both were Trinamool activists".
Mishra claimed the local Trinamool chief had gone to the house on Wednesday to collect his "share of protection money" and died in the explosion.
He claimed that workers for making the bombs used to be brought from three to four different districts so that the locals had no inkling of what was taking place inside.
"There are reasons to believe that the links extended to other states, especially some districts in Tamil Nadu."
"Whatever has happened is not isolated. There is continuity. The bombs made there have been used over a large part of the state by the ruling party for pre and post poll violence. Locals had repeatedly complained but police looked the other way," he said.