One person was injured in a blast in a residential building in Kolkata’s New Town on late Friday evening, a team of National Investigation Agency (NIA) reached the scene on Saturday.
Event Context
Soon after the incident, local police, the state police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and sleuths from the Bidhannagar city police detective department rushed to the spot.
CCTV footage showed a man entering one of the ground-floor rooms of a three-storey building at South Narayanpur in New Town with a jute bag. An explosion took place moments after the man left the house. The blast damaged two adjacent ground-floor flats, along with walls, doors and windows, police said.
Police also recovered two explosives from the room and detained one person for questioning.
“One person was injured when a concrete chunk fell on his head after the blast. Two crude bombs have been recovered from the spot. Investigation is going on,” said an officer. “One person has been detained for questioning,” the officer added.
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People familiar with the matter said that the flat owner, Zulfikar Ansari rented the room to Md Shamim on July 15. Police said Shamim was on the run, and the probe is underway.
“There was a deafening sound and there was smoke everywhere. Families live in the other ground-floor flats, including three children. Luckily, they had gone for tuition classes around that time. Else they could have been injured,” said Md Sajid, a resident.
The NIA reached the scene on Saturday and collected samples for forensic analysis to find out the explosives used.
Team Analysis
“The tenant Md Shamim came to me through a local broker whom I knew. I had told Shamim that he could start staying once he pays the advance. He took the keys to clean the flat. He had asked a man to keep the bag inside the room on Friday evening,” Ansari said.
