‘565 children injured or killed by bombs used by political activists in West Bengal since 1996’ | India News – Times of India

Screenshot from the documentary.

LONDON: Children maimed by crude bombs used by political activists during election campaigns in West Bengal have appeared in a BBC documentary, “Children of the Bombs”, broadcast on Tuesday which reveals that at least 565 children have been killed, maimed or injured by such bombs in West Bengal since 1996 when Bengali musician Kabir Suman wrote “Howzzat”.
That song was inspired by a blast in a park in Kolkata in 1996 in which Puchi was injured aged nine. He recalls how he and four friends were playing cricket and found some balls in a bag which they thought were cricket balls. “When I hit that ball with my bat, immediately there was a blast,” he said.The parents describe finding their kids, one with no eyes, covered in blood. Two of them died. The father of Gopal who died, Bablu Biswas, said he only identified his son by his flower-shaped trouser button.

Avijit Mondal, Puchu’s friend, told the BBC Eye documentary: “Election means fear and riots. Why does this always affect people from the slums? Someone’s life gets wasted for just a few votes.”
“Extreme abuse of childhood and adolescence is going on. If I was the chief minister of the state, I would put an end to this. Forever. I would be merciless and ruthless against the mob,” said Pankaj Dutta, former IGP,West Bengal,who died on Nov 30, after giving the interview.
Poulami appears in the BBC World Service documentary. She lost her hand aged seven in 2018 when she picked up an object which she thought was a ball and it exploded, blowing her fingers off.
Dutta tells the documentary the use of bombs became an accepted feature of politics in West Bengal after the 1946 Calcutta Riots but the genesis of bomb-making started in Muraripukur Garden House in Kolkata in 1908 when revolutionaries Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki attempted to kill British magistrate Douglas Kingsford.