M A I N   N E W S

300 tonne explosive missing
Rajasthan, MP cops in a tizzy; cargo may have fallen into wrong hands
Perneet Singh
Tribune News Service

Jaipur, August 13
Nearly 300 tonne of explosives loaded in 61 trucks have gone missing in Dholpur district of Rajasthan. The Rajasthan Explosives and Chemicals Limited (RECL) had supplied the consignment worth Rs 1.4 crore to Ganesh Explosives, a firm based in Sagar district of Madhya Pradesh, between April and June this year. The consignment did a vanishing act while on its way from RECL (Dholpur) to Sagar.

RECL manager (administration) VN Srivastava said they had informed the Dholpur and Sagar SPs about the release of consignment. He claimed that they had followed all norms and examined every document before selling explosives to the Sagar firm, adding that complete payment has been received against the consignment.

Meanwhile, the police of both states are at loggerheads over the issue. While Sagar SP Vijay Suryavanshi says the explosives have not reached their district, Dholpur SP Surendra Kumar said investigations should be done at the place where the consignment was sent, adding that they are willing to extend all help to the MP Police in the matter.

According to sources, 58 out of 61 trucks had reached Sagar on papers but it could not be physically verified. The SP office in Sagar received information about it as per norms, but when a police team reached the spot to verify the arrival of consignment, it didn’t find anything. The police then registered a case against Jaikishan Avsani, a partner in Ganesh Explosives, under the Explosive Substances Act. Preliminary investigations revealed that Avsani sold the explosives to private firms in Bhilwara (Rajasthan), Rajgarh (MP) and Ahmednagar (Maharashtra). The police are now trying to interrogate owners of these firms.

Investigations into the case also revealed that the licence of Ganesh Explosives had expired in March 2010 but still the supply of explosives to the firm continued unabated till June. However, RECL authorities maintained that they received a letter in this regard from the department concerned in Bhopal only on July 16, after which no explosives were sold to the firm.

Amid apprehensions that the explosives may have fallen into wrong hands, the MP Police has constituted four teams to probe into the matter, out of these one each would head to Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh while the fourth team would investigate the matter in MP.