Birbhum police on Saturday seized a huge amount of explosives, including detonators, gelatin sticks and ammonium nitrate, from a locked office of a stone crushing unit in Birbhum’s Nalhati.

This comes at a time when the NIA has been probing into a racket involving the smuggling of explosives in the state.

A police officer said cops while working on a tip-off raided the locked office of the stone-crushing unit in Chandannagar village of Birbhum’s Nalhati on Saturday morning. After an operation of over three hours, they recovered 20,000 pieces of detonators, 24,000 pieces of gelatin sticks and 700 kg of ammonium nitrate from the locked building.

“The crusher unit was lying closed for a few months. We will interrogate the owner to know how such a huge quantity of explosives was stockpiled at his property,” a senior police officer said.

The bomb disposal squad reached the spot and seized the explosives on Saturday afternoon.

Birbhum police chief Raj Narayan Mukherjee said the cops had begun a probe to find out the source of the explosives.

“No one has been arrested so far,” Mukherjee said.

A police officer said though the preliminary investigation revealed that the explosives were meant for use in illegal stone mines, they were trying to find out other angles, if
any.

Birbhum has an extensive belt of stone mines and crushing units, spreading over six police station areas. All legal establishments get explosives based on special permission granted by the mining department. Smuggled explosives are usually used by owners of illegal stone mines.

The explosives haul assumes significance as the National Investigative Agency is been probing into a racket involved in smuggling detonators and gelatin sticks in the state. The NIA had started the probe after a similar haul of explosives from Birbhum in July last year. Bengal’s special task force had seized the explosives from Birbhum’s Mohammedbazar.

In June this year, the central agency arrested Trinamul gram panchayat member Manoj Ghosh for stockpiling explosives. The central agency also arrested one Islam Chowdhury in this connection.

“This is an eyewash by the state police at a time the NIA has been contemplating to quiz Saigal Hossain in connection with the explosive smuggling. All the Trinamul leaders are involved in the racket and we want the NIA to take over this case of seizure of explosives,” said BJP district president Dhruba Saha.

A Trinamul leader said the party had no connection with such nefarious activities and the law would take its course.