Police avert hostage crisis in Bengal school, disarm gun-wielding man

A gun-wielding man burst into a crowded classroom at a high school in West Bengal's Malda district on Wednesday afternoon but was overpowered by police and arrested, officials said.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who was holding an administrative meeting in Kolkata at the time, came out to praise the police for averting what is seen as a potential school hostage crisis that could have turned ugly like the US hostage shootings. educational campuses.

Students of Muchia Anchal Chandra Mohan High School in Old Malda panicked when an unidentified man brandished a weapon and started shouting in a classroom of nearly 35-40 students including girls, a senior police officer said. ''The man managed to enter the school and entered the room where students of Class 8 were sitting. He was holding a gun and shouting at the students, allegedly threatening to kill them,'' an officer told as per reports.

Class teacher Pratibha Mahanta said a man who appeared to be a parent entered her classroom brandishing a gun and told her to sit in one corner, asking students to sit before launching threats and complaints that the administration she doesn't do enough to track down his disappearance. a wife and child who he claimed were students at the school. ''I somehow managed to escape when he was busy shouting and alerting the other teachers,'' Mahanta told reporters.

Teachers who rushed to the classroom said the man, identified by locals as 'Raju Vallabh', kept shouting that he would 'shoot if someone shoots him''.

However, the gunman was overpowered by bystanders and police personnel who also rushed to the school when informed that a hostage drama was taking place, the officer said, adding that a pistol, two bottles with some liquid and a knife were seized from him. property.

The bespectacled man claimed that he acted like this because his son and wife have been missing for a year and wanted to put pressure on the management to take notice. He brandished a piece of paper and was heard complaining that his repeated letters and missing complaints about his missing wife and child to various officials, including the State Secretariat, were being ignored. According to neighbors, however, a man in his 40s is separated from his wife and his child lives with her.

Concerned guardians rushed to the school, which has about 1,000 students, and made a beeline outside the educational institution even as classes were suspended following the incident, police said.

Malda Superintendent of Police Pradeep Yadav told reporters, "The situation is now under control... we are investigating why and how the man entered the school and managed to enter the classroom." Praise the police for disarming and making the arrest. man, Banerjee claimed that the whole matter could have been a conspiracy. ''The case of the man brandishing a gun in the Malda school may not be an act of madness,'' the chief minister said at a press conference at the state secretariat.

Reacting to the incident, state BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya criticized the state police and compared the averted hostage crisis to shooting incidents in the United States, where gunmen shot dead school students in a similar hostage-taking attempt. ''The incident reflects the worsening law and order situation in the state. Such incidents are quite common in Europe and America. We have never witnessed such incidents here,'' he said.