At least five of the Duttapukur blast victims were from Murshidabad's Suti, known as a labour supply hub for Bengal's fireworks units.

Inspector-in-charge of Suti police station Prasun Roy said: “Five persons from the village have been killed in the Duttapukur blast. Relatives went to Duttapukur and identified the bodies. Arrangements are being made to bring the bodies to Suti."

A police officer in Murshidabad said that the five blast victims from Suti were Andaz Sheikh, 20, Chhoton Sheikh, 17, Ronny Sheikh, 27, Habib Sheikh, 40, and Sujan Sheikh, 27.

These five persons, including the minor, were residents of Natun Chandra village of Suti home to siblings Jerat Sheikh and Ishar Sheikh, accused by the NIA of a blast near Murshidabad's Nimtita station on February 17, 2021, targeting former state labour minister Jakir Hossain.

Andaz and Chhoton are Jerat's sons while Ronny is Ishar's son.

Jerat's estranged wife Asmari Biwi said: "I identified the bodies of my two sons.... They went to work with other relatives in Calcutta but got killed in Duttapukur."

Jerat was also accused of a blast at a fireworks factory in West Midnapore's Pingla in May 2015 that claimed the lives of 12 labourers from Suti's Natun Chandra village. While Jerat was let off, 10 persons were convicted and are serving life terms.

At Nimtita, former minister and Trinamul MLA Hossain survived the attack but suffered serious injuries. A time-controlled device was used to conduct the blast as he was about to board a Calcutta-bound train.

After the attack on the minister, Jerat and Ishar were arrested. While Ishar is still in judicial custody, Jerat got bail a few months ago.

Jerat's name had also cropped up after the blast at an illegal fireworks factory at Egra in East Midnapore in May this year. He was arrested for stockpiling explosives but later got bail.

On Monday, some residents of his native Natun Chandra village in Suti alleged that when it was trying to get past the dubious identity of a "bomb makers' village", five persons from the village lost their lives as they fell for Jerat's offer and went to work at the illegal fireworks unit at Duttapukur.

Local sources said Suti had become the supplier of "skilled" labourers to both legal and illegal fireworks industry in Bengal. After 12 persons lost their lives in the Pingla blast, Suti villagers had become reluctant to take up related professions. But the lack of better job opportunities forced villagers to shake off their reluctance and take up offers from fireworks units, where Jerat and Ishar operated as labour suppliers.

"There was genuine reluctance after the Pingla blast for three years but people here did not have alternatives. They had to return to fireworks units. People like Jerat and Ishar kept taking our youths to work in the illegal units for good salaries. The deaths of our villagers in Duttapukur bared the truth about the lack of jobs for our youths and the complicity of middlemen like Jerat," said Shamima Khatun, a homemaker in Natun Chandra village.