Tulia Das chairperson of West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights said at a press meet that the incident in Chopra happened because of irresponsible behaviour of the central force. We had to lose 4 lives because of the irresponsible action of the BSF. Yesterday we had asked for a report from the local SP and also wanted to know what actually happened there from the district magistrate.
A member of the Commission said, “What we have heard, there was no prior approval for such an activity there and no precautions were taken before undertaking such work. They needed to ascertain how much they can dig so that there is no subsidence. But, no soil test was done. This is unfortunate.”
A fact-finding five-member team of the Commission will be visiting North Dinajpur tomorrow. “We will try to ensure that such incidents do not happen again,” a member said.
Sources in the Trinamul Congress said that party national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee is closely monitoring the situation at Chopra and has asked the local leaders to stand by the affected families. As instructed by Abhishek Banerjee, district leaders reached out to the families of 4 kids, who lost their lives due to negligence of BSF and provided them financial assistance of Rs 3 lakh per family.