Cops bust illegal cracker unit, arrest house owner

KOLKATA: The police have arrested the owner of a property in Bansdroni in south suburban Kolkata where an illegal firecracker unit had been operating for years. Police said the accused has been identified as Sanjay Dhar (31).
A major fire had destroyed the unit and had affected two more neighbouring buildings last Saturday. Police said they carried out the arrest based on a specific FIR after the fire department officials recovered 10 drums of chemicals from the spot.
“Dhar has been slapped the section 11J and 26 of the West Bengal fire Service Act and 9 (B) (1) (b) of Explosives Act,” said DC (Jadavpur) Santosh Nimbalkar.
The police said that even the initial forensic report has proved that there were chemicals present for which no permission was taken from the police or the fire department. “We have sent the huge stockpile of chemicals to laboratory for testing,” said Mir Wasim Raja, a forensic expert who visited the spot last Sunday.
Police sources said that the accused had employed around six people — two of them residents of Champahati in South 24 Parganas, one of the biggest producers of fire crackers in Bengal. “It seems the accused manufactured tubri, rang mashal and phuljhuri and sent them to Champahati for sale,” said an investigating officer.