State of terrorism: Another RDX haul within 2 days

In a span of two days, yet another consignment of RDX has been recovered from Gujarat. The Kutch police has seized about 30-40 kg RDX and also recovered huge quantity of arms including one AK 47, ammunition and made an arrest in this connection.

On Monday, the Anti-Terrorist Squad and CBI had recovered 5.2 kg RDX from Patan.

According to reliable sources in the Kutch police the seizure was made from desert region near Haji Pir under Norha police station at Kutch by a team led by district superintendent of police Vivek Shrivastav on Tuesday. There were also unconfirmed reports of an infiltrator being arrested near the Kutch border late on Tuesday night.

Since Kutch police was unavailable for comment as top officials were reported to be at the site of recovery, DGP (intelligence bureau) G.S. Raigar told that "Though detailed reports are still unavailable what we know is that an informer told the Kutch police about the precise location of the explosives, arms and ammunitions. The informer also told the Kutch police that this consignment was buried in the sand quite some time ago and militants were planning to take it out and use it for an appropriate operation soon."

According to sources, DSP Shrivastav led his team into the desert with BSF personnel patrolling the area and managed to recover the explosives. The city, state, rural police, BSF, all three defence wings and intelligence networks especially in the bordering areas hae been functioning on a red alert basis following the militant attack on the Parliament.

The seizure is this year's biggest haul of RDX so far, apart from the 5.2 kg RDX, huge quantity of arms, ammunition and detonators recovered from a pit at Santalpur near Patan on Monday and 20 kg RDX recovered from near the same place in Patan district in October. Both of these operations were conducted by the Anti-Terrorist Squad and Central Bureau of Investigation, Gandhinagar. In the most recent seizure officials also recovered Urdu newspapers which were wrapped around the explosives, a letterhead of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and a map with directions and the test in Urdu. Most wanted criminal Aziz Razakhan, who was shot dead in an encounter with Rajkot police recently, did confess that he and three other accomplices did bring at least 30 kg RDX, arms and ammunition into Gujarat via Barmer, Rajasthan at the behest of Pakistan based LeT. ATS officials from Ahmedabad had also got a confession from him just three days before his encounter.

The Kutch coastline stretching upto 240 km on the northeast and western parts makes it one of the most porous borders for infiltrators to move around and also carry arms and explosives consignment without being detected at many times. Moreover the presence of agents of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed in parts of Gujarat has been proved in various crack down operations conducted by agencies and documents which proves their nefarious activities in the state.

Director of Forensic Science Laboratory Dr. J.M. Vyas said that a team has left for Kutch to collect the explosives recovered by district police and bring them back for testing.

Republished from The Asian Age