‘Police cover up’: Suvendu Adhikari demands NIA probe in bombing of TMC leader’s house

BJP's Leader of opposition (LoP) in West Bengal Suvendu Adhikari has demanded an NIA investigation into the blast on December 2 in the house of a TMC Leader Raj Kumar Manna in Bhupathinagar, West Bengal, in which three people died including Manna. 

Adhikari wrote a letter to Home Minister Amit Shah and asked for an NIA probe citing multiple incidents of crude bomb blasts in the recent past in the state, the easy availability of gunpowder to manufacture bombs, and also the reluctance of the state police in conducting a fair investigation in the said matter. It’s important to recollect, TMC leader and local booth president Manna along with two others died in a bomb blast in his house in West Bengal’s Bhupatinagar area in Purba Medinipur district.

Notably in the letter, Adhikari also quoted a TMC party leader and MP talking about the crude bomb-making formula being used. 

Adhikari for NIA probe

In a four-page letter to Home Minister Shah Adhikari stressed the blast, which was so powerful in intensity it “blew the tinned roof of the two-storeyed mud house,” happened when crude bombs were being manufactured at the house.

After the blast, Adhikari alleged the dead bodies of “Rajkumar Manna and others were found in the paddy fields; quite far from the house where the explosion occurred. It is pretty clear that there were attempts to hide the bodies after the explosion” and also added, “The West Bengal Police is trying to cover up the incident, so these people have been admitted to private nursing homes in adjacent districts instead of government hospitals so that the involvement of these people doesn’t come to light and their identities are not revealed in the public domain”. 

‘Police trying to hamper the investigation’

Adhikari further questioned the role of the police, “Even after a day (of the blast), police didn’t cordon off the area where the incident took place and failed to secure it before the forensics arrived. The intention was to get the evidence tampered,” so, Adhikari stated as the police are trying to scuttle the investigation, it has become necessary that the “NIA conducts a fair investigation in the matter.”   

Adhikari in the letter also alluded to the several crude bomb blast incidents in the state in the past weeks to buttress his point. Quoting TMC MP and leader Sougata Roy, Adhikari spoke about the bomb-making formula in use and said, “The bomb-making formula of the 1960s is still in use, it has not been updated yet. Bombs are made with potassium chlorate, potash, and arsenic tri sulfide by twisting coconut rope in a metal box. It has always been this way.”