Hazaribagh, Feb. 22: Two persons were arrested after a vehicle carrying 1,300 detonators was intercepted by the police on NH-33 at Padma, about 15km away from the district headquarters, this evening.
Acting on a tip-off that a large consignment of detonators was being sent from Barhi to Hazaribagh, superintendent of police Pankaj Kamboj tipped off his men, who then began checking vehicles on the highway.
Officer-in-charge of Padma police station Laxman Singh and his team were manning a barricade at Padma Gate, the training centre of Jharkhand Armed Police on NH-33, when they stopped a jeep headed towards Hazaribagh.
Driver of the jeep Mohammad Siraj and cleaner Gabriel Ansari were asked to step out and declare the goods they were carrying. When they refused to say anything, the jeep was searched and the detonators found hidden in a large bag under the seat.
When questioned, Siraj and Ansari pleaded ignorance. They said the jeep belonged to one Nasim Siddique who also owned a shoe shop at Barhi Chowk. They said Nasim had handed them the bag and asked them to keep it under the seat.
Police have registered a case and sent the duo to Loknayak Jai Prakash Narayan Central Jail. Singh said investigations were on and Nasim would be arrested.
Sources said batch numbers printed on the detonators had been removed, and it was only Nasim who could say where he got them from and who they were meant for.
However, today's seizure was not the first such in the state.
On November 29, police recovered 5,000 detonators after they intercepted a Maharashtra registered car near Jogia Pahaad on a tip-off and arrested four of its occupants at Tisri in Giridih.
A cache of double detonator boosters, used by Maoists to prepare and trigger powerful IEDs, were recovered from a forest between Gaijara and Korda villages in Bundu police station area, some 40km from the state capital, on November 15.
On July 7, as many as 310 boosters were recovered from Aradid forest under Bundu police station after founder member of the CPI(Maoist) in Panchpargania area of Ranchi district, Heera Singh Munda, was arrested.
Again, on July 22, security forces had recovered 67 double detonator boosters kept with two landmines, 24 rounds of bullets of .303 calibre, 308 gelatin sticks, two walkie-talkie sets and two countrymade rifles in a rebel hideout near Gaijara and Korda
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