Kolkata, March 5: Chemicals like sulphur and ammonium nitrate, which are also used to manufacture improvised explosive devices (IEDs), were found stocked in gunny bags near Sirsi village in Kotwali, in West Bengal’s West Midnapore district, late on Thursday night. This is the biggest haul of chemicals used for explosives in West Bengal. Had these chemicals been converted into bombs, the magnitude of damage would have been very high.

Police sources claimed that a Maoist squad led by Badal, which had been active in that area for the past couple of months, had buried these chemicals in the ground to hide them. However, no one was arrested during Thursday night’s raid. It may be noted that CPI (Maoist) politburo member Kishenji’s mobile tower location was found to be at the same location in Sirsi when the other Maoists had attacked the EFR camp at Sildah on February 15.

"Based on source information that I received, our forces raided that area late on Thursday night. The moment the security forces reached the spot they faced heavy firing from the opposition, hinting that the Maoists were trying to hide something," West Bengal DGP Bhupinder Singh told this newspaper.

However, when the forces retaliated, the Maoists retreated into the adjoining villages. "We found that the ground was freshly dug at several places. On digging up those areas, we found five gunny bags in which the chemicals were stuffed," Mr Singh added.

Sources revealed out of the five bags, one was stuffed with sulphur an that bag weighed around 49.57 kg. The remaining four, containing ammonium nitrate, weighed 200 kg in total. The gunny bags had the legend "PCI Industrial Grade" printed on them. Insiders revealed that a gas cylinder was also recovered from the spot.

"These chemicals are generally used in making the IEDs, landmines and anti-directional mines that the Maoists have been using. The amount of chemical seized could have caused a high magnitude of damage," Mr Singh said.

It is suspected that the Maoists had stacked the chemicals in a strategic location — open from three sides, including Lalgarh, Salboni and Kotwali — so that they could be carried off by Maoists in any direction whenever the need arose.

Monalisa Chaudhuri