Bhubaneswar: In a major development in one of the largest Maoist-related arms heists in recent years, Odisha Police on Wednesday confirmed that armed Maoists were behind the looting of nearly five tonnes of commercial explosives in Sundargarh district last week. The state’s top police official said that over 3.8 tonnes of the stolen explosives have since been recovered in an ongoing joint operation with security forces from neighbouring Jharkhand.Addressing a press conference in Bhubaneswar, Odisha Director General of Police (DGP) Y.B. Khurania said the incident took place on May 27 when a truck transporting licensed commercial explosives to a stone quarry at Banko, under K. Balang police limits, was intercepted by armed Maoists.“Preliminary investigations confirmed that around 150 packets of gelatin sticks and other high-intensity explosive materials, weighing close to 5 tonnes, were forcibly taken by the armed group,” said Khurania.Soon after the incident, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was constituted, and large-scale combing operations were launched by joint security forces, including the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Special Operations Group (SOG), and the elite COBRA unit. The Odisha Police received support from their Jharkhand counterparts, as the Maoist-affected Saranda forest region straddles the inter-state border.On Tuesday, police arrested Shravan Agrawal, the owner of the explosives warehouse in Badgaon from where the materials were dispatched, along with a vehicle driver. Acting on a specific intelligence input about an abandoned vehicle near a petrol pump, security personnel recovered a large cache of the looted explosives.“We have also launched an inquiry to ascertain whether Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) related to the storage and transportation of commercial explosives were duly followed,” the DGP added. He noted that initial findings pointed to serious lapses in protocol, as neither police stations nor district authorities were informed about the movement of such a large quantity of explosives.“All recovered explosives have been secured in safe custody,” Khurania assured.The incident has raised serious security concerns in the region, where Maoists have historically targeted security personnel and infrastructure. The state government has intensified vigil across the vulnerable border districts of Sundargarh, Keonjhar, and Mayurbhanj, while central paramilitary forces remain on high alert.
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