A seven-year-old boy was killed and a 10-year-old seriously injured after a countrymade bomb exploded when they mistook it for a ball near Barrackpore, around 35 km north of Kolkata, on Tuesday morning.
A nine-year-old girl died in a crude bomb explosion at Minakhan in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district. The incident occurred on Wednesday evening and the police, on Thursday, arrested her uncle Abul Hussain Gayen for storing crude bombs in the house. The child hailed from South 24 Parganas district and had come to visit her maternal uncle in Bakchora village.
These two news excerpts, one from October 25 and the other from November 17, show how stray explosions are increasingly becoming a concern in West Bengal as in most cases children are victims of such incidents.
The state has witnessed a number of stray bomb incidents, where children have mistaken bombs as toys or play things resulting in severe injury and, in some cases, even death. There have often been headlines about such explosions and bomb recoveries with much mudslinging between political parties about questions of law and order in the state.
Police are now trying to raise awareness about such incidents in schools. The Barrackpore Commissariat has come up with a new idea, where police teams have started visiting different schools with awareness campaigns and to train children so that they stay away from or avoid suspicious items.
A school at Kamarhati in Titagarh now has at least one class dedicated to the police campaign occasionally, where children are educated on what items they should not touch – for instance, any toy left unattended such as dolls or balls.
“We are targeting schools in these areas from where maximum number of bomb recoveries or incidents have been reported. Our team is going to these schools and campaigning in classrooms. We are asking students not to touch unclaimed or unattended luggage, toys or other items. Our aim is to raise awareness and this campaign will help. We have already started visiting schools and are receiving good feedback,” Ajoy Prasad DC, South Barrackpore Commissariat, told News18.
The commissariat has chosen different schools and is using the play-way method to make children understand unidentified and unclaimed objects. “Whenever there is an explosion or bomb recovery, we arrest the culprits. Of late, it has been observed that children are becoming vulnerable to such incidents. We have tried our own methods but if we also raise awareness among children, they will think twice about touching unclaimed or unidentified objects. We can save lives and that is what is important. We are also planning to ask rag pickers to keep us informed of such items and award them as well,” Commissioner Aloke Rajhoria said.
Experts, too, said, police are not only trying to raise awareness but also making an effort to detect hideouts where bombs are stored. Ragpickers in this case can be of great help, they said.
Local residents said each criminal element in Barrackpore has their own area and keep such crude bombs or other contraband in casual hideouts such as garbage dumps or open fields. This was a major reason why bombs were being mistaken for common, everyday items, they added.
Read all the Latest India News here
Comments
0 comment