Panic in Bengal school after gun-wielding man enters classroom, cops avert hostage crisis

Panic gripped students in Muchia Anchal Chandra Mohan High School at Old Malda in West Bengal on Wednesday after a gun-wielding man tried to hold hostage students.

In the visuals shared by ANI, the man is yelling inside a classroom before he is overpowered and arrested by the cops. He has been identified as Deb Ballabh. They seized a pistol, two bottles containing some liquid and a knife from him.

A senior cop has told PTI that the class had nearly 35-40 students including girls. After barging into the classroom, the gun-wielding man asked class teacher Pratibha Mahanta to sit in one corner and asked students to sit quietly, she said. He then issued threats and complaints that the administration was not doing enough to trace his missing wife and child.

The teacher said that the man also claimed that his child was a student at the school. "I somehow managed to escape when he was busy shouting and alert other teachers," Mahanta told newspersons.

The man has reportedly claimed that his complaints to the various authorities about his missing wife and child have been ignored. Following the incident, his neighbours said that he was separated from his wife and his child was with her.

Sources have told India Today that he is a "mentally-unstable" man.

As the news of the incident spread, anxious parents entered the school while the school suspended the classes.

"The situation has now been brought under control ... we are investigating why and how the man entered the school and managed to get into a classroom," Police Pradeep Yadav told reporters.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee complimented the police for averting a hostage crisis, which is quite common in the US. She said that the incident may have been a plot. "Case of the man brandishing a gun at Malda school may not be an act of lunacy," she said.

With inputs from PTI