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The bomb of violence kills and maims children


Ronny Sen for BBC Poochu Sardar in yellow jerseyRonnie Sen for the BBC

Puch was nine years old when he struck what he thought was a sword, causing the fatal explosion

At least 565 children in the Indian state of West Bengal have been injured or killed by homemade bombs over the past three decades, a BBC Eye investigation has revealed.

So what are these deadly weapons and how are they linked to political violence in West Bengal? And why are so many Bengali children paying the price?

On a clear summer morning in May 1996, six boys from the slums of Calcutta, the capital of the state of West Bengal in India, went out to play cricket in a narrow alley.

Their slum, located in a middle-class neighborhood in Jodhpur Park, was teeming with life. It was a holiday – the day of voting in national elections.

Nine-year-old Puchu Sardar, one of the boys, grabbed a cricket bat and quietly slipped past his sleeping father. Soon the crack of the ball meeting the bat echoed down the lane.

A ball kicked out of the makeshift field prompted the boys to search for it in a small garden nearby. There they found six round objects in a black plastic bag.

They looked like cricket balls that someone had left behind and the boys went back to playing with their loot.

One of the “balls” from the bag was thrown to Pucha, who hit him with a bat.

A deafening explosion swept through the alley. It was a bomb.

When the smoke cleared and neighbors rushed outside, they found Pucha and five of his friends sprawled in the street with blackened skin, burnt clothes and torn bodies.

Screams pierced the chaos.

Seven-year-old Raju Das, an orphan raised by his aunt, and seven-year-old Gopal Biswas died of their injuries. Four more guys were injured.

Puchu barely survived, suffering severe burns and shrapnel wounds to his chest, face and abdomen.

He spent more than a month in the hospital. When he got home, he had to use kitchen tongs to remove the shrapnel still in his body because his family ran out of money to pay for further medical care.

Puchu and his friends are among a long, tragic list of children killed or maimed by crude bombs used in West Bengal’s decades-long bloody struggle to dominate the state’s violent politics.

There are no publicly available figures on the number of casualties in West Bengal.

So the BBC World Service went through every issue of two prominent state newspapers – Anandabazar Patrika and Bartaman Patrika – from 1996 to 2024, looking for reports of children being injured or killed by these devices.

We have identified at least 565 child casualties – 94 dead and 471 injured – as of 10 November. This means that a child was the victim of an explosion every 18 days on average.

However, the BBC found incidents in which children were injured by these bombs that were not reported by the two newspapers, so the actual death toll is likely to be higher.

More than 60% of these incidents involved children playing outdoors – in gardens, on the streets, on farms, even near schools – where bombs, commonly used during elections to terrorize opponents, were hidden.

Most of the victims the BBC spoke to were poor, children of domestics, casual workers or farm workers.

The Revolutionary History of Bombs in West Bengal

West Bengal, India’s fourth-largest state with a population of more than 100 million, has long struggled with political violence.

Over the years, since India’s independence in 1947, the state has seen various rulers – the Congress party for two decades, the Communist-led Left Front for three and the current Trinamool Congress since 2011.

In the late 1960s, the state was engulfed in armed conflict between Maoist rebels – also called Naxalites – and government forces.

A common thread in all government and insurgent conflicts since then has been the use of bombs as a tool of intimidation by political parties to silence opponents, especially during elections.

“Bombs (were used to settle scores). This has been happening in Bengal for a long time, more than 100 years,” Pankaj Dutta, former inspector general of police in West Bengal, told us.

Ronnie Sen for the BBC. Crude bombRonnie Sen for the BBC

Today’s crude bombs in West Bengal are tied with jute string and packed with shrapnel-like nails, nuts and glass

Bomb-making in Bengal dates back to the rebellion against British rule in the early 1900s.

Early efforts were rough and accidents were common, with one insurgent losing an arm and another dying during a bomb test.

Then a rebel armed with bomb-making skills returned from France.

His book bomb – a legal tome filled with explosives hidden in a tin of Cadbury cocoa – would have killed its target, a British judge, if he had opened it.

The first explosion occurred in the Midnapore district in 1907, when revolutionaries derailed a train carrying a high-ranking British official by planting a bomb on the tracks.

A few months later, a failed attempt to assassinate a judge in Muzaffarpur with a bomb thrown into a horse-drawn carriage claimed the lives of two Englishmen.

The act, described by the paper as “a massive explosion that rocked the city”, turned a teenage rebel named Khudiram Bose into a martyr and the first “freedom fighter” in the pantheon of Indian revolutionaries.

Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a nationalist leader, wrote in 1908 that bombs were not just weapons, but a new kind of “magical knowledge,” “witchcraft” that had spread from Bengal to the rest of India.

Today, Bengal crude bombs are known locally as peta. They are tied with jute strings and studded with shard-like nails, nuts and glass.

Options include explosives packed in steel containers or glass bottles. They are used mainly in violent clashes between rival political parties.

Political activists, especially in rural areas, use these bombs to intimidate opponents, disrupt polling stations, or take revenge on perceived enemies.

They are often used during elections to sabotage polling booths or to establish control over districts.

Ronnie Sen for BBC Poulami HalderRonnie Sen for the BBC

Pulami Halder was picking flowers when she found what she thought was a ball

Children like Pulami Halder bear the brunt of such violence.

On an April morning in 2018, the then seven-year-old girl was picking flowers for morning prayers in Gopalpur, a village in North 24 Parganas district dotted with ponds, paddy fields and coconut palms. There was only a month left before the village council elections.

Pulami saw the ball lying near the neighbor’s water pump.

“I took it and brought it home,” she recalls.

When she stepped inside, Grandpa, sipping his tea, froze at the sight of the object in her hand.

“He said, ‘It’s not a ball, it’s a bomb!’ Drop it!” Before I could react, it exploded in my hand.’

The explosion broke the silence of the village. Pulami was wounded in the “eyes, face and arms” and passed out as chaos erupted around her.

“I remember people running towards me, but I didn’t see much. I was beaten everywhere.”

The villagers urgently took her to the hospital.

Her injuries were terrible – her left arm was amputated, she was in the hospital for almost a month.

A normal morning routine turned into a nightmare that changed Poolami’s life forever in one, terrifying moment.

Ronnie Sen for the BBC Sabine Hatun looks sad in a shawlRonnie Sen for the BBC

Sabine Khatun finds it difficult to perform simple everyday tasks due to her injuries

Pulami is not alone.

Sabina Khatun was 10 years old when a crude bomb exploded in her hand in April 2020 in Jitpur, a village surrounded by rice and jute fields in Murshidabad district.

She was taking her goat out to graze when she came across a bomb lying in the grass. Intrigued, she took it and started playing with it.

Moments later, it detonated in her hands.

“The moment I heard the explosion, I thought, who will be disabled this time? Was Sabina mutilated?”, says her mother Amina Bibi, her voice heavy with pain.

“When I went outside, I saw people carrying Sabina in their arms. Flesh was visible from her hand.’

Doctors were forced to amputate Sabina’s arm.

After returning home, she struggles to rebuild her life, her parents despairing of an uncertain future. Their fears are not unfounded: in India, women with disabilities often face social stigma that complicates their marriage and job prospects.

“My daughter kept crying, saying she would never get her hand back,” says Amina.

“I constantly comforted her, said: “your hand will grow back, your fingers will grow back.”

Now, Sabina struggles with the loss of her arm and struggles with simple everyday tasks. “I have difficulty drinking water, eating, showering, dressing, going to the toilet.”

iPlayer strap

Children of the bombs

In the Indian state of West Bengal, children are regularly maimed, blinded or killed by homemade bombs. BBC Eye investigates the political violence at the heart of this tragedy and asks why the carnage can continue.

Watch on iPlayer or, if you are outside the UK, watch on YouTube

Crippled by the bombs but lucky enough to survive, these children’s lives were changed forever.

Poolami, now 13, got an artificial arm but couldn’t use it – it was too heavy and had grown too fast. 14-year-old Sabina struggles with her eyesight.

Her family says she needs another operation to remove the bomb fragments from her eyes, but they can’t afford it.

Pulled out of school by his terrified parents, Puchu, now 37, refused to go outside for years, often hiding under his bed at the slightest noise.

He never picked up a cricket bat again. Robbed of his childhood, he now works odd jobs in construction and bears the scars of his past.

But all hope is not lost.

Pulami and Sabina have learned to ride a bicycle with one hand and continue to go to school. Both dream of becoming teachers. Poochu hopes for a bright future for her five-year-old son Rudra – a future in the form of a police officer.

Ronnie Sen for the BBC. Sabina rides a bicycle with one handRonnie Sen for the BBC

Sabina, like Pulami, learned to ride a bicycle with one hand and dreams of becoming a teacher

Despite the terrible toll it is taking, there is no sign that the violence in West Bengal is over.

None of the political parties recognize the use of bombs for political purposes.

When the BBC asked West Bengal’s four main political parties whether they were involved, directly or through intermediaries, in the production or use of crude bombs, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) did not respond.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) vehemently denies involvement, saying it is “committed to the rule of law… and that when it comes to protecting rights and lives, children are a major concern.”

The Indian National Congress (INC) also strongly denied using crude bombs for electoral advantage and said it had “never engaged in violence for political or personal gain”.

Although no political party has claimed responsibility, none of the experts who spoke to the BBC have any doubt that the massacre is rooted in a culture of political violence in Bengal.

“In any major election here, you will see the rampant use of bombs,” Pankaj Dutta told us. “There is extreme violence against childhood. This is an oversight on the part of society.” Mr. Dutta died in November.

Pulami adds: “Those who planted the bombs are still at large. No one should leave bombs lying around. No child should ever suffer like this again.”

“Look what they did to my son”

But the tragedy continues.

In May of this year, in Hooghly district, three boys, while playing near a pond, unknowingly came across a cache of bombs. As a result of the explosion, nine-year-old Raj Biswas was killed, and his friend was crippled, without an arm. The second boy escaped with broken legs.

“Look what they did to my son,” Raj’s father sobbed as he caressed the forehead of his dead child.

As Raj’s body was lowered into the grave, political slogans of “Hail Bengal!” rang out from the campaign rally next to the crackling sound. the crowd chanted, “Hail Bengal!”

It was election time. And again, the children paid the price.



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