Bengal Illegal Firecracker Factory Blast: Role of Panchayat Under Scanner

After eight people died in a blast at an illegal firecracker factory at Patharpratima in West Bengal's South 24-Parganas district, the role of the local panchayat has come under the scanner of investigating officials.

- AGENCIES

The blast took place on Monday night. District administration sources said that it had been revealed that the Banik family, at whose residence the illegal firecracker was being run, had secured an ordinary trade license from the local panchayat, which did not come with the permission to run a firecracker manufacturing unit.

Now, questions are being raised about how even that ordinary trade license was granted by the local panchayat, especially in the backdrop of criminal antecedents of one of the two arrested accused in connection with the blast, Chandrakanta Banik.