|
Baster: The missing van laden with 2,500 detonators from Chhattisgarh’s restive Bastar region has been recovered by the police, who said that unidentified people who had hijacked the vehicle, have looted the detonators.
The Mahindra Max pickup van with 2,500 detonators went missing on July 5 on the way from Mandir Hasod on Raipur’s outskirts to an iron-ore mine in Kirandul in Dantewada region.
Inspector General of Police (Bastar) T.J. Longkumer said, “The van was recovered early Monday in a forested area but the detonators are missing.”
In the words of the van driver, Maoist militants had hijacked the vehicle from Sonarpal village on National Highway 43 in Bastar district and took it to a forested area. The rebels allegedly off-loaded all the detonators and then let off the driver.
Longkumer said, “We doubt the driver’s claim and are interrogating him.”
The hijacked van was one of two hired by a Dantewada-based private mining company to blast rocks of the Bailadila hills for mining of iron ore.
Several search squads have been set up by police and all entry and exit points of Bastar district have been sealed in a bid to recover the detonators.
According to the police sources, Maoists mostly use detonators to set up landmines in Chhattisgarh.
More than 90 per cent of the about 1,500 people who have died in Maoist violence since the state came into existence in November 2000 were victims of landmine blasts.
|
