Kolkata, July 5 (IANS) One person was killed and three others injured, one of them seriously, in a blast at an abandoned building at Katwa in the East Burdwan district of West Bengal late on Friday night, reportedly during the manufacturing of crude bombs there.

As per the statement given by the local residents to the police, the entire area shook following two successive blasts late on Friday night.

As the local people rushed to the spot they saw the charred body of a person there. Another person, who was severely injured in the blast but still alive, was also there.

While the deceased person is yet to be identified, the injured person is Tufan Chowdhury, a local Trinamool Congress associate notorious in the locality for allegedly being involved in anti-social activities.

The locals also said that two other persons were reportedly there in the abandoned house when the blast took place and both of them were also injured because of it.

The local residents said that after they came out of their houses upon hearing the sounds of the two successive blasts, they saw two persons with injuries rushing out of the house.

However, they soon vanished from the area but were identified by the locals as Safique Mondal and Ibrahim Sheikh.

The impact of the two blasts was so massive that the wall of a room in the abandoned house collapsed and its roof was blown off completely.

A huge contingent from the local police station reached the spot and the injured Tufan Chowdhury was rushed to a local hospital and he is under treatment there.

The body of the deceased person was sent for post-mortem purposes and the police are trying to ascertain his identity.

Preliminary investigation suggests that in all probability, Chowdhury gathered anti-social elements for manufacturing crude bombs in the abandoned house.

The abandoned house where the blast took place was originally owned by Lombu Sheikh, who died recently.

Ever since his death, there was no one living in the house and Chowdhury apparently took advantage of this fact to conduct his nefarious activities.

–IANS

src/rad