Birbhum: Shut down all bomb-making units, Mamata Banerjee tells police

Referring to the recent incident in which an arms factory was busted in Rabindra Nagar in South-24 Parganas, Mamata said, “Outsiders are bringing arms from Munger. I want police to take serious action. I have zero tolerance for such things.”

She asked police to carry out regular search operations so that no one gets a chance to stock arms and bombs.
“No hooliganism will be allowed. I will not let anyone to control an area by using muscle power,” the chief minister said.

Mamata also warned her party workers against internal clash. While speaking about factionalism in her party, Mamata asked Sheikh Swanaz, MLA of Ketugram, to warn his brother Kajal Sheikh against creating trouble in the area. “Tell your brother Kajal Sheikh not to create problem in the area. There are lots of cases against him but we are not taking immediate action. I know he is in the village only. Warn him or else actions will be taken,” Mamata said.
Kajal Sheikh is the rival of Trinamool’s Birbhum President Anubrata Mondal. Since 2008, the party has been divided into two factions — one led by Anubrata Mondal and another by Kajal Sheikh.

In the meeting, she highly appreciated the Birbhum district administration for executing various development and welfare programmes. Apart from government officials, a group of students from Visva-Bharati University were present in the administrative meeting, as reported by PTI.

Answering to a question by a student on the progress of Nobel-theft investigation, PTI quoted Mamata as saying, “The CBI started the investigation, but they said later that they had closed it. We asked them for sending details of the investigation and documents to us. Unless they hand over the case, we cannot proceed. However, an investigation is going on.”

Police in Birbhum, which has witnessed bomb blast incidents in the past, had recently launched a massive operation to recover bombs and identify bomb-manufacturing units in the district. The move came after a state government directive following the incident in Labhpur last month, in which nine people were killed while allegedly making crude bombs.

In February 2016, two people were killed in a blast that took place at a Trinamool leader’s house at Khairashol. In January 2016, two people, including a Trinamool Panchayat Samiti member, were killed and another injured when crude bombs stocked at their house exploded.