Rourkela (Odisha), Jun 15 (PTI) Odisha police on Sunday arrested the prime accused and mastermind behind the loot of five tonne of explosives by Maoists from a vehicle near a store quarry in Sundergarh district on May 27, an official said.
The arrested accused has been identified as George Munda alias Kulu (43) from Banko village under K Balang police station.
Munda was passing important information to the Maoists. He was the main conspirator from the beginning of the loot and actively passed information to the Maoists, said DIG (Western Range) Brijesh Rai.
During the investigation, George’s complicity was found by the police. He was living just opposite to the quarry and was objecting to it, which was closed down subsequently, Rai said.
It was he who had passed the information regarding the movement of the vehicle with explosives and ensured that the loot was carried out without any problem, the police said.
Around 200 packets of explosives, mostly gelatin sticks, were looted by Maoists at gun-point on May 27 while those were being transported to a stone quarry for blasting rocks.
A day after the looting, Odisha DGP Y B Khurania and other senior police officers visited the spot and an NIA team also started investigating the matter.
Odisha Police have also constituted an SIT (Special Investigation Team) to probe into the incident.
Security personnel on May 30 recovered a substantial amount of the explosives looted by Maoists in Sundergarh district following a fierce gun battle with the red rebels. They found the stolen explosives in a dense forest in Jharkhand, around three km from the Odisha border.
So far, 3.8 tonne of explosives have been recovered while search is still going on to recover the remaining explosives, they said. PTI COR BBM RG
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