Bhubaneswar: Security forces on Monday recovered another 2.5 tonnes of explosives, six days after Maoists looted a stone quarry truck in Sundargarh district. The joint operation led by Odisha police involved multiple agencies, including the special operations group (SOG), district voluntary force (DVF), India Reserve Battalion (IRB), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), and Jharkhand’s Jaguars. By Friday, around 30 per cent of stolen materials had been recovered.“Odisha police have been working day and night on a sustained basis to ensure that the entire looted explosive consignment is recovered. All due care is being taken for safety of personnel searching for the explosive materials in the forest,” said DGP Y B Khurania. The joint effort is being overseen by top police officers of both states.The recovery operation involved deep search metal detectors (DSMD) to locate explosives buried underground and concealed beneath dry leaves in a forest area along the Odisha-Chhattisgarh border, said DIG (western range) Brijesh Rai. “SOG is leading the other forces in the search operation. We still have 1.5 tonnes of explosives left to recover. There are natural craters in the forest, which the Maoists have used to hide the explosives. So far, we know that the ultras have hidden the explosives within a four km stretch of forest,” the DIG added.Investigation earlier revealed that the quarry owner didn’t follow the protocol to transport the explosives, as the route the truck moved was isolated. Police are also in the dark as Maoists removed the video recorder of CCTV installed in the quarry. According to police, quarry owner Shraban Agrawal has an explosive licence in his name and another in his wife’s name. Police are probing the details of stocks and recent deliveries.On May 27, armed Maoists hijacked the explosives-laden truck from a place close to Banko stone quarry. They took the truck into the forest and fled with the explosive packets, which included mostly gelatine sticks and detonators used in stone blasting. The site of the loot was adjacent to Saranda forest, a Maoist den in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand.
