KOCHI: There is more to it than meets the eye in the recovery of Army ammunition from the Bharathapuzha riverbed at Kuttippuram in Malappuram in January 2018. A detailed probe undertaken by the Kerala Police has hit a roadblock after an investigation team knocked on the doors of top Army offices seeking a few answers to solve the case.
It’s still a mystery how the ammunition exclusively used by the Army got dumped in the riverbed of Bharathapuzha at Kuttipuram. The investigation team, that successfully tracked the ordinance factory in Maharashtra where the said ammunition was made, also traced the destination to Punjab where the ammunition was stored.
An officer close to the development said: “We have been facing stiff resistance from the Army after we successfully tracked the ordinance factory and trailed the route through which the ammunition was transported. They are not cooperating as a few vital details are required to expose the real links. It seems they want to sweep certain information under the carpet so that the facts remain hidden,” the officer said.
Thrissur Range Inspector General M R Ajith Kumar said the investigation team had really worked hard to collect certain details but the probe got stuck midway due to certain technical hitches cited by the Army. “We have written to the police headquarters saying the case may be handed over to the CBI or NIA as the ramifications involved in the incident warrant a probe by a central agency,” he said.Apart from five claymore mines and a large cache of bullets used in self-loading rifles, six pulse generators were recovered from the riverbed near the Kuttippuram bridge during the first and second weeks of January.