ZCZC
BFF-45
INDIA-BOMBINGS-CRIME-KOLKATA
Bomb kills child, injures 9 in India’s Kolkata
KOLKATA, Oct 2, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – An eight-year-old child was killed and at
least nine other people injured on Tuesday when a homemade bomb went off in a
suburb of the Indian city of Kolkata, police said.
India’s eastern West Bengal state, of which Kolkata is the capital, has a
long history of political violence and targeted killings of rival party
activists.
“The crude bomb exploded below a four-storey building near the market and
injured 10 persons, four of them seriously,” Barrackpore police commissioner
Rajesh Kumar Singh told AFP.
“An eight-year-old who sustained injuries in the blast died at the
hospital. We are investigating it from all aspects,” he added, refusing to
name any suspects.
Eyewitnesses described a “powerful explosion” to local media and said that
it shattered the windows of nearby buildings.
Police said that forensic teams were trying to gather evidence.
The state’s dominant political players, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC)
and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI-M, have traded allegations
of crude bomb attacks and other violence in the past.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right wing Bharatiya Janata Party, which has
started to make political inroads in the state in the last few years, has
also accused rivals of violence.
A Press Trust of India report cited Panchu Roy, a local TMC politician
whose office is inside the building where the blast happened, as saying that
he was the actual target.
“It was a pre-planned blast…. They had planned to kill me and other TMC
workers, as it would create panic and help them gain (a) foothold in the
area,” he said, without naming any suspects.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1612 hrs