Rourkela: Police on Sunday seized huge quantities of explosives from vehicles near a petrol pump in Odisha’s Rourkela city.
According to sources, two vehicles were parked near the filling station in Raghunathpali area of the Steel City for the last two days. Suspecting some foul play, the owner of the petrol pump alerted police this morning, which along with the local Tehsildar and Mining Department officials reached the spot, inspected the vehicles and found approximately 160 packs of detonators.
The drivers had parked the vehicle after filling diesel and told the workers’ there that they would be back after having a cup of tea. “Since the vehicles were parked outside the petrol pump, we did not pay much attention,” the filling station owner said.
This comes shortly after security forces recovered a portion of the 1.5 tonnes of gelatin sticks stolen from a truck by suspected Maoists on May 27. “The security forces have recovered over 70 per cent of the stolen explosives during a combing operation in Saranda forest,” deputy inspector-general of police (Western Range) Brijesh Kumar Rai told the media.
The loot was seen as a retaliatory move by the Maoists after their top commanders, including Maoist leader Basavaraju, were killed in Narayanpur forest of Chhattisgarh last week.
However, it is yet to be ascertained if the explosives recovered from the two vehicles in Rourkela are part of the same.
