ROURKELA: Two days after seizing a couple of mini-trucks laden with blasting explosives, RN Pali police arrested the explosives warehouse owner and his driver and produced them in court on Tuesday.
The arrest of Shraban Agarwal (41) and his driver Birsa Samad (30) comes after the two explosives-laden trucks were found parked outside a fuel station at Deogaon near Balughat on June 1.
Police said Agarwal has two explosive licences including one in the name of his wife and owns a warehouse at the remote Itma in Bargaon block of Sundargarh district. On May 27, three trucks carrying explosives had come out of the warehouse. One of the trucks was looted by Maoists from K Balang area. Agarwal kept the other two trucks hidden and lied to police that the explosives were delivered to clients.
Police said around 23,000 pieces of gelatin sticks, 400 detonators and 22,500 metres of detonating fuse wires were seized from one vehicle. Seizure from the other truck included 3,750 metre wires, 2,718 gelatin sticks and 30 packets of detonators.
One of the trucks was driven by Agarwal himself. He along with his driver parked the two trucks outside Rourkela Fuel Filling Station at Deogaon on May 30. Two days later, locals informed the police about the parked vehicles.
Rourkela SP Nitesh Wadhwani said the accused failed to produce any valid document for the explosives. Agarwal kept the trucks hidden with the intention to sell the explosives later at a higher cost. So far, Agarwal’s link with Maoists has not come to notice.
On May 27 morning, Maoists had hijacked an explosives-laden truck from near a stone quarry at Banko within K Balang police limits. They took the vehicle to the nearby forest and unloaded the explosives. Later, the ultras carried the explosives to Saranda forest in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand.
On May 30, the security forces of Odisha and Jharkhand recovered a portion of the looted explosives after an exchange of fire with the Maoists at Tirilposh inside Saranda forest. Subsequently on Monday, the forces recovered about 2.5 tonne of looted explosives from Saranda.