Prime accused held in explosives loot case
Munda was passing information to the Maoists. He was the main conspirator from the beginning of the loot and actively passed information to the Maoists, said DIG (Western Range) Brijesh Rai. During the investigation, Munda's complicity was found by the police. He was living just opposite the quarry and was objecting to it, which was closed down subsequently, Rai said. It was he who had passed the information regarding the movement of the vehicle with explosives and ensured that the loot was carried out without any problem, the police said.
Around 200 packets of explosives, mostly gelatin sticks, were looted by Maoists at gun-point on May 27 while those were being transported to a stone quarry for blasting rocks. A day after the looting, Odisha DGP Y B Khurania and other senior police officers visited the spot and an NIA team also started investigation into the matter.
Odisha police also constituted an SIT (Special Investigation Team) to probe the incident. Security personnel on May 30 recovered a substantial amount of the explosives looted by Maoists in Sundargarh district following a fierce gun-battle with the red rebels. They found the stolen explosives in a dense forest in Jharkhand, around 3 km from the Odisha border. So far, 3.8 tonnes of explosives have been recovered while search is still going on to recover the remaining explosives.
The State police, with assistance from CRPF, CoBRA, Jharkhand's Jaguar and Odisha's SOG and District Voluntary Force (DVF), had launched the search operation in the nearby forests on the night of May 27. The DGP admitted that the SOP meant for carrying explosives was not adhered to when the incident took place.
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