In the past 27 years, he was slapped with five substantial cases under the Explosive Substances Act, including at least three incidents of blasts, was arrested five times and once along with his wife, lost family members in a blast in the same illegal firecracker factory in 2001 and a number of workers in another explosion in 1995. These are some exclusive details accessed by News18 about the criminal antecedents of Bhanu Bagh, the prime accused in the blast in East Midnapore district’s Egra town in West Bengal. Bagh, who is now absconding, owns the illegal firecracker factory in Egra’s Khanakul village.
The blast took place in the morning on May 16, killing eight workers including five women, and leaving two grievously injured. One of the injured victims is a woman. The incident has triggered outrage nationally as the political slugfest between the ruling Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party has taken centre stage in West Bengal where panchayat elections will be held soon.
Within hours of the incident, BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar wrote to union home minister Amit Shah, seeking a probe by the National Investigation Agency in the case. However, this is one of many cases of such explosions in the state. News18 has accessed the documents and related FIRs which reveal that in the past three years, between 2020 and 2022, the NIA has taken over at least 10 such cases, registered under the Explosive Substances Act and other relevant sections in Bengal. All cases are under investigation, say NIA records. Among these cases with the NIA is another one of a massive fire in an illegal cracker factory in North 24 Parganas that killed five people. The incident took place in January 2020 and the case is still pending.
‘Bagh’ of tricks
Bhanu Bagh’s case history explains how the bomb-making and illegal firecracker-making sectors have been thriving in the state over the past three decades and more, experts say. Bomb-making across villages has practically turned into a “cottage industry” considering the high number of explosion cases recorded in the state, according to opposition leaders, and it has remained like that since the 1990s.
Bhanu Bagh, a history-sheeter, was last arrested in October 2022, but was granted bail by a local court in a month, said top sources in the West Bengal police administration. He was arrested in 2021, 2015, 2001, and back in 1995. In 2015, Bagh was arrested along with his wife. However, with absolute impunity, he manages to get bail and revive his operations in the village, the sources said.
During the course of the investigation, authorities traced the operation of the illegal factory to 1995 and before and the area of operation to some districts in Odisha too. The workers were making firecrackers for a consignment, supposed to be delivered to some local villages for Manasa Puja (Hindu goddess primarily associated with snakes) on May 16 and 17 and at the related village fairs. Bagh, who is known in the village as one who deals in illegal explosive substances, won a rural election in 2008 as an independent candidate and became a member of the local gram panchayat (GP).
A senior police officer, who is in the know of things, said, “The local courts continue to grant quick bail to the accused persons, who are arrested under very serious sections like the Arms Act or Explosive Substances Act. So many persons arrested in such serious cases were granted bail the same day or in 48 hours too.”
The illegal firecracker factory was raided by the local police in October and was sealed. However, Bagh, who was granted bail almost within a month, returned to the village and restarted work. The role of the local thana and the inspector incharge (IC) will be examined to find out if there was a nexus, added the senior police officer.
Bombs, blasts, and Bengal
An analysis of Bengal’s history of explosions across villages, low and high-intensity blasts, seizure of explosives from village houses, and the related deaths reveal that the culture of making bombs in rural parts has passed from generation to generation. It has been a way of survival among villagers to defend and intimidate political rivals, while the illegal cracker factories thrive as a way of livelihood.
Districts like Birbhum, Murshidabad, South 24 Parganas, North 24 Parganas, and Burdwan have been the hubs of household training for bomb-making and it has remained so for three decades now, officials say. In the past three months, Bengal has seen two such blasts in Birbhum, killing two people, and injuring half a dozen villagers. A bomb went off in a Trinamool Congress leader’s house in the district in March, injuring two of his brothers. In February, two TMC workers were killed while bombs were hurled at them by their political rivals in Birbhum.
In the past three years, between 2020 and 2022, at least 10 cases registered under the Explosive Substances Act across districts in West Bengal have been handed over to the NIA. A close analysis of the cases and the FIR documents by News18 reveals that most of the cases were registered in connection with incidents of blasts at schools, football grounds in villages, residential houses, and illegal firecracker factories. A couple of cases have been registered after seizures of a huge cache of arms and explosives, including electronic detonators and gelatin sticks.
Senior police officers in the state said that some of the cases, picked up by the NIA, are not even fit to be taken over by the central agency. The NIA Act defines the nature of cases the agency may take up and investigate.
In January 2020, the NIA was directed by the union home ministry to take over a case relating to a massive fire in an illegal firecracker factory in Devak, Naihati, under the jurisdiction of Barrackpore police commissionerate in North 24 Parganas. Five people were killed on the spot, including two women, and some were injured. Three and a half years have passed since the incident, but the investigation is still pending, according to the case document accessed by News18.
“The NIA has taken up around nine to ten cases in the past two or three years, but investigation is pending for all. No case has gone to trial as of now. Even though the NIA Act defines which cases have to be probed by the agency, we have seen that it did not take up the cases of IED blasts in Darjeeling in 2017. There were eight incidents of IED blasts in Darjeeling in 2017 when the district witnessed a violent Gorkhaland movement. So, we do not understand what are the parameters now for the NIA to take up cases. However, the state government has no problem if the MHA wants to get the case investigated by the NIA,” said a senior police officer.
The incidents of blasts in rural and suburban Bengal are so rampant that the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, in 2015, did a study on the pattern of incidents and explosives used. According to the study, the CFSL recorded at least 751 cases under the Explosive Substances Act in the state in 2014-15. In comparison, insurgency-hit Assam and Nagaland recorded about 142 and 200 cases, respectively that year. Following the Khagragarh (Burdwan) blast that exposed a Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) terror module in 2014, the Enforcement Directorate registered cases related to 12 incidents of explosions to trace the money trail and supply chain behind such networks.