Click to play videoAhmednagar (Maharashtra): In perhaps one of the single biggest hauls of explosives India has seen in recent times, over 175 kilogram of RDX and 20 kilogram of TNT, was seized in a scrap dealer's shop in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra.
The explosives are now lying safely in the custody of the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation police station in the district.
The explosives were siezed after the police got a tip off and raided the shop in Khare-Karzune village on September 3 but it’s only after the forensic lab in Hyderabad sent them a report that their worst fears were confirmed.
“We got a report from the lab in Nashik and then a second confirmation from the lab in Hyderabad that the explosives are indeed a mix of RDX and TNT,” said Superintendent of Police, Ahmednagar, Sunil Ramanand.
But the case isn't straight forward. Though the explosives had been seized and the premises sealed, the scrap dealer, Shankar Shirke, had managed to escape.
Matters took a further twist when the police recovered Shirke's body four days ago.
The post mortem report confirmed that Shirke had consumed poison but the police are still probing whether it's case of suicide or murder.
Locals in the village confirm that pilfering unexploded munitions from the range is not uncommon and Shirke was no different from most others who have had to supplement their income by dealing in scrap after the army took over their farm land.
“A lot of people here are unemployed. Earlier we used to gather scrap from the firing range. Now this haul and the death is troubling our village,” said the former village head, Baburao Homane.
At a time when the state of Maharashtra is on a heightened terror alert, it's the mysterious circumstances of Shirke's death and who he'd been supplying the explosives to, that's now perplexing the police.
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