Midnapore, Sept. 27: Four suspected Maoists, including a youth who had dropped out of college to join the rebels, were arrested in West Midnapore’s Belpahari.

A police officer said Bhagirath Mondal, 20, was a second year BSc student of Chandrasekhar College in Shilda.

The other rebels arrested during a raid in Bhulabheda forest are Baneshwar Pramanik, Baren Mardania and Patol Murmu. Two activists of the People’s Committee against Police Atrocities, Shodhar Karmakar and Amit Mahato, have also been picked up. A pistol and explosives have been seized from them.

4 die in blast at fireworks factory

Four people were killed and two others suffered burns in an explosion at a fireworks factory in a Hooghly village this morning. The single-storey building has been razed to the ground.

The dead, identified as Meera Das, 60, her daughter Kabita, 35, Sumi Mandi, 25, and Shankar Murmu, 23, were workers at the factory in Dhaniakhali’s Mirjanagar village. Jayanti Murmu and Phulmoni Hansda have suffered serious burns.