THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Four men, including two Assam natives, have been arrested in connection with the seizure of a dozen crude bombs near a railway track at Station Kadavu. The railway police, on Wednesday night, had recovered as many as 12 country-made explosives as they searched a group of five men, who were lurking amid bushes near the railway line.
Though the men fled on seeing the police, officers seized the bombs hidden in the bushes. Subsequently, a Thumba police team nabbed Santosh, 45, and Sulfi, 43, of Station Kadavu, and Rahman, 30, and Shajahan, 18, of Assam on Thursday morning.
Barring the first-accused (name withheld), who was still on the run, the rest were charged under the Explosives Act and remanded to judicial custody. Police sources said the first-accused had conspired with the rest of the group members to attack a rival gang, which had recently assaulted him.
Santosh and the first-accused have criminal cases against them. The exact role of the Assam natives in case was yet to be ascertained, police sources said. Kazhakootam ACP Hari C S said, following the seizure of explosives, the police had conducted a search operation near the railway tracks and surroundings, but no bombs were recovered.
“We will continue to look for more explosives in the locality,” he said. “We are probing whether organised criminal gangs were behind the stockpiling of crude bombs.” Notably, earlier this month, a Menamkulam native, Rajan Pereira, was seriously wounded in a crude bomb attack.