Police recover Maoist explosives bunker in Chhattisgarh
Police have recovered a cache of explosives, weapons and equipment allegedly hidden by Maoists in a forested hill area of Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district, an official said on Monday.
The recovery was made on Sunday evening from an underground bunker on a hilly area near Dodi Tumnar village under Gangaloor police station limits, the official said.
Acting on a tip-off, a police team launched a search operation in the forested area and detected the bunker allegedly built by Maoists in the past to hide explosive materials and other equipment, he said. After undertaking demining and safety procedures, the team recovered a large quantity of Maoist materials from the site, the official informed.
The seized items included a country-made barrel grenade launcher (BGL), 29 BGL shells, around 50 metres of cordex wire (a detonating cord used to trigger IEDs), two generators, two lathe machines, an inverter, four batteries, eight solar panels, a motor, welding machine, drill machine, and two plastic drums, he said.
Security forces have intensified operations to trace and recover materials like explosives and weapons from forests across the Bastar region — comprising seven districts, including Bijapur — after the State Government declared Chhattisgarh free from armed Maoist activity on March 31. Based on inputs from surrendered Maoists and intelligence gathered from other sources over the past few months, security forces have recovered and defused hundreds of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) allegedly planted earlier by Naxalites across the Bastar range, police said.
During one such operation on May 2, four police personnel, including an inspector of the District Reserve Guard (DRG), were killed in Kanker district after a dump of gunpowder, allegedly hidden by Maoists in the past, exploded while a team was attempting to dispose it of.
