'I brought it home thinking it was a ball' - Children of the Bombs | BBC World Service Documentaries

A #BBCEye investigation has found reports of hundreds of children killed, maimed or injured by crude bombs in the Indian state of West Bengal over the last three decades. The homemade devices have long been part of the political landscape in the region. Click here to subscribe to our channel 👉🏽 https://bbc.in/3VyyriM Homemade so-called 'crude bombs', packed with shrapnel, have become widely and routinely used by political activists in West Bengal during election campaigns — to intimidate opponents, create havoc at opposition rallies, or assert control over neighbourhoods. These destructive devices are often hidden in out-of-the-way places where children find them and mistake them for toys - unknowingly activating them when they are picked up or thrown. There is no publicly available data on crude bomb child casualties in West Bengal, so the BBC went through the archives of two Bengali newspapers from 1996 to 2024 and found reports of 565 children killed or harmed — on average, one every 18 days. The BBC also learned of unreported casualties, so the actual number of children affected is likely to be higher. 00:00 Introduction 03:35 "I brought it home thinking it was a ball" 05:41 A history of election violence 08:37 Meet Puchu 12:07 Kabir Suman: Music as activism 14:03 Documenting the brutality: An archive of evidence 15:00 Residue of British colonialism? 17:24 Poulami's story 19:30 Raju and Gopal - memorial for parental grief 21:00 Hindus and Muslims: A tension of two communities 22:29 Sabina's trauma 25:25 Power and politics: The Naxalite movement 28:44 The scars of shrapnel 30:36 Healthcare access and recovery 33:07 "Elections mean riots" 34:44 Author of an anthem, soundtrack to a revolution 37:02 The politics of poverty 40:34 New generation, new hope? 🎞️ To watch more investigative journalism from our award-winning BBC teams check out this documentary playlist, perfect for the biggest screen in your home: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz_B0PFGIn4fADt3h_U2SOWErIq-xtXPD ---------------- This is the official BBC World Service YouTube channel. If you like what we do, you can also find us here: Instagram 👉🏽 https://www.instagram.com/bbcworldservice Twitter 👉🏽 https://twitter.com/bbcworldservice Facebook 👉🏽 https://facebook.com/bbcworldservice BBC World Service website 👉🏽 https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldserviceradio Thanks for watching and subscribing. #WestBengal #Documentary #BBCWorldService #WorldService #India #Documentaries #BBCInvestigation #Kolkata #Indian #Partition #BBCIndia #WestBengalElection