Bengal cracker unit blast: Two public interest litigations filed in Calcutta High Court

KOLKATA (IANS). Two public interest litigations (PILs) were filed in the Calcutta High Court on Monday over the blast at an illegal firecracker unit at Dattapukur in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district.

The first petition was filed by Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Suvendu Adhikari, while the second was filed by state BJP leader Rajarshi Lahiri.

Both the public interest litigations were filed before Chief Justice T.S. Sivagananam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharya bench.

In both the petitions, the petitioners have sought a National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe into the matter.

This was state BJP president and party Lok Sabha member Dr. It comes a day after Sukant Majumdar wrote a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah demanding an NIA probe into the case.

In his petition, the officer specifically mentions how in earlier developments, the state government had non-cooperated with central agency NIA officials in investigating communal clashes on the occasion of Ram Navami procession this year despite a Calcutta High Court order.

“I have appealed to the court to notice the non-cooperation given by the state administration to the central agency in the last case,” the official said on Monday.

According to him, the impact of the explosion shows prima facie that the incident was not the result of raw materials collected for normal firecrackers. “It looks like something more serious could be going on in this case. “There are too many things and only NIA officials can reveal the real story after investigation,” the Leader of Opposition said.

He also pointed out that the recovery of stone chips from the blast site indicated that crude bombs must have been manufactured there under the guise of cracker warehouse.