Hazaribagh police have recovered 20 bags of ammonium nitrate from Bhuswan Tandh area, which comes under Ichak police station. The bags were kept under a pile of stones at a place surrounded by about a dozen stone mines. Police failed to arrest the persons present there as they escaped before the arrival of police team.
SP Akhilesh Jha said that someone gave him this secret information on telephone. “The informer said that a huge quantity of explosives is kept near the Bhuswan Tandh village, but he failed to give us exact location. A team was formed under the leadership of DSP Satish Kumar Jha and Ichak police was instructed to help the team. The team first used the sources of Ichak PS and soon, identified the spot of Bhuswan Tandh village and raided the spot,” said the SP.
It is not still clear that for what purpose this explosive was kept at that spot. In this area, the owners of stone mines and stone crushers use this explosive for the purpose of breaking stones by blasting. There are hundreds of stone mines running illegally in this area, which includes parts of Ichak, Padma and Barkhatha blocks. SP said that Hazaribagh police were regularly making raids on illegal stone mines and crushers for last more than one month. We have destroyed more than two dozen stone crusher s and seized the machines which were used for crushing the stone.
On May 6, a couple was killed, when the packets of detonators and inflammables blasted in the outskirts of a village under Padma police station. After this incident, Hazaribagh police have recovered a huge quantity of detonators and other explosives from that area. Perhaps some trader of these explosives has hidden these bags there due to increased activity of police, Jha added. He also not denied the probability of link of these explosives with the banned left ultra-groups.
According to Government of India records, around 900,000 kg of ammonium nitrate explosives has been illegally diverted or stolen in less than two years between March 2010 and January 2012. Experts said the actual figure was probably a lot higher and that this was just the tip of iceberg.