Kolkata: With the water levels in the northern sector of West Bengal, especially Jalpaiguri, starting to recede, the accumulation of mortar shells and other explosive boxes on the banks of river Teesta has emerged as a new headache for the district administration.
These items were in all probability carried by the flood water from different bases of the Indian Army in Sikkim, which has recently been devastated by flash flood.
What has become even more concerning for the Jalpaiguri district administration is that these explosive items have started exploding from time to time, endangering lives of the people going to the riverbeds.
In such a situation, the administration is alerting the local people to refrain from venturing the riverbeds and touching doubtful substances stuck there.
The police with the help of the defence personnel there have started the process of clearing such explosives items like mortal shells from the riverbed on an emergency basis.
Already on October 6 evening, two persons were killed and six others severely injured in Jalpaiguri, as a mortar shell, reportedly carried by the flood waters of the Teesta, blew up.
Local police sources said that in all probability, the victims were trying to physically inspect the mortar shells carried to the area by the flood water, when it exploded.
Meanwhile, eight more bodies, carried by flood water, have recovered at different parts of the riverbed of Teesta on Sunday till late evening.
According to the Jalpaiguri district police superintendent Umesh Ganpat Khandbahale, till date a total of 40 bodies carried by flood waters have been recovered in the district, of which ten have been identified.
Out of the ten identified, six are Indian Army personnel, while the remaining four are civilians.
–IANS
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