Bhubaneswar: Security forces on Wednesday recovered another one tonne of explosives that were looted by suspected Maoists from a quarry in Odisha’s Sundargarh district on May 27.
The joint operation was carried out by personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Special Operations Group (SOG), and the elite COBRA unit acting on specific intelligence inputs, leading to the seizure near a stone quarry in Sundargarh district.
“The security personnel recovered another 1,000 kg of explosive during the operation on Tuesday night,” DIG (Western Range) Brijesh Rai told PTI.
So far, nearly 3.6 tonne of explosives have been recovered. “The search operation is continuing in the dense forest of adjoining Jharkhand,” he added.
Earlier, 157 kg and around 2.5 tonnes of the four tonnes stolen explosives were found buried underground during similar search operations in Saranda forest near Koida in Sundargarh district on the Odisha-Jharkhand border.
On May 27, an armed group of 25-30 “Maoists”hijacked an explosives-laden truck from Banko stone quarry in the K Balang area of Sundargarh district and looted four tonnes of explosive gelatin sticks, raising fear that these could be used for subversive activities.
While Odisha Police have instituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) for the probe, National Investigation Agency (NIA), which also launched a parallel probe into the incident, also sent a team to the loot spot.
