Huge cache of explosives found ahead of J’khand poll

Hours ahead of polling in Jharkhand for the second phase of elections on December 7, the security personnel thwarted Maoists’ design when the cops recovered huge quantity of explosives, gelatine rods and detonators in two different parts of the state.

The recovery was made during the search operations carried out by the police in the Tutihara jungles of Namkum, where arms, ammunitions and ten pieces of electronic detonators were found. “We had received information on Thursday about the movement of Maoists, led by Santosh Mahto, in the jungle area of Namkum. Based on this report, an extensive search operation was carried out. The Special Task Force (STF) eventually destroyed the explosives as well as Maoists’ camp in the forest area,” said Senior SP (SSP) of Ranchi, Anish Gupta.

In another similar success, the cops recovered 320 gelatine rods and 200 detonators near Dumka, which is also the Up-Rajdhani (second Capital) of Jharkhand. “The explosives were found in a crusher. Further investigation is on as we have inputs about the movement of Maoists’ groups near the forest areas of Santhal Pargana region,” said SP of Dumka, YS Ramesh.

It is precisely against this backdrop (of Maoists’ threat) that the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora last month explained why the Assembly election in Jharkhand was being conducted in five phases.

Voting for the second phase of poll for the 20 Assembly constituencies will begin on December 7 morning. This will include Jamshedpur (East) from where Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das is in the fray.

The fifth and last phase of polling is slated for December 20. Counting for all the 81 seats will take place on December 23.