Kolkata, Feb 11 A huge quantity of explosives was recovered from a truck in the Rampurhat area in Bengal's Birbhum district on Tuesday morning.
The explosives were recovered from a truck that was apprehended by cops and from there 16,000 kilograms of ammonium nitrate was recovered.
"The truck was loaded with 320 sacks and each sack contained 50 kilograms of ammonium nitrate thus resulting in the recovery of 16,000 kilograms of such explosives items," said a district police official.
Three individuals, including the driver and the helper, have been detained and brought to the Rampurhat Police Station for interrogation.
The district police official said the driver could not produce any specific document for carrying such a huge quantity of ammonium nitrate. At the same time, there were a lot of contradictions in the statements made by the driver in the face of initial and on-spot interrogation.
As per the information, the truck from Telangana's Sangareddy district was en route to Deoghar in Jharkhand. District police sources said the quantum of power explosives seized could affect quite a large area.
The police have started an investigation into whether such a huge amount of ammonium nitrate was being carried out with any insurgency intention.
Last month, West Bengal Police recovered as many as 20,000 detonators and 15,000 gelatin sticks from an abandoned house located in a jungle area at Rampurhat.
As it is, recoveries of illegal detonators and gelatin sticks are quite common in the Birbhum district because of the innumerable stone quarries where such explosives are used for stone blasting.
To recall, huge explosives items including 81,000 detonators, 27 kg of ammonium nitrates and 1,925 kilograms of gelatin sticks were recovered at the Muhammadbazar area of Birbhum district on June 30, 2022.
These explosives were seized by the sleuths of the Special Task Force (STF) of state police.
The National Investigation Agency took charge of the investigation on September 29 of the same year and filed the chargesheet in the case within 90 days after the beginning of the investigation.
The NIA arrested several heavyweight Trinamool Congress leaders and local businessmen from the Birbhum district in this connection.
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