The Hindu : Front Page : Explosives seized from KSRTC cloakroom

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Tuesday, Jan 03, 2006

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Explosives seized from KSRTC cloakroom

Staff Reporter

Seizure follows a bomb threat over phone on Sunday

FEARFUL HAUL: Police officials examining gelignite sticks recovered from the cloakroom of the KSRTC bus station in Kozhikode on Monday. — Photo: S. Ramesh Kurup

KOZHIKODE: The police have seized 45 gelignite sticks from the cloakroom of the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) bus station here on Mavoor Road.

A carton containing these explosive sticks were in fact recovered from the cloakroom on Sunday evening. But the police confirmed that these were gelignite sticks only on Monday.

The police control room attached to the Office of the Kozhikode City Commissioner of Police received a phone call on Sunday from a public booth at Vellayil, a coastal area in Kozhikode city, threatening that a bomb had been planted at the KSRTC bus station.

A person, who gave his name as Sainudeen, had kept the carton at the cloakroom on December 28. The cloakroom keeper told the police during interrogation that the carton had been there for almost a week.

The carton also contained a letter in which it was said that the explosives would be used against some private hospitals in the city for allegedly fleecing the patients. It also mentioned that these would be used against the Regional Transport Authority for giving permits to private stage carriers violating stipulations. The carton has the capacity to hold 80 sticks. It had a label - Industries Explosives Limited, Vellore in Tamil Nadu. This was brought to the Nadakavu police station in the evening. Bomb experts of the State Special Branch diffused the sticks.

The explosives were later taken to Malappuram to be kept in safe custody, City Police Commissioner H. Venkatesh said.

Explosives experts from Kochi were directed to investigate further into the matter. The police are also looking whether some of the sticks had been earlier taken out from the carton.

Gelignite is an explosive mixture comprising nitro-glycerine, gun cotton, wood pulp and potassium nitrate. It is usually used for large-scale blasting in construction and mining industries and cannot explode without detonators. Intelligence officers said that they had been suspecting the flow of explosives meant for some fundamentalist outfits in North Kerala. Gelignite sticks had been used in the explosion at the Beypore fishing harbour in September 2005.

A Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Crime Branch - Crime Investigation Department has so far been unable to obtain any clues about the blast.

The police have tightened security arrangements in Kozhikode in view of the fourth anniversary of the riots at Marad seaside on January 3 and 4.

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