Locals relieved as explosives shifted to Sivaganga depot

The explosives, including land mines and grenades, were loaded on a vehicle in a day-long operation supervised by Ramanathapuram Principal District and Sessions Judge A Kayalvizhi, officials of the Petroleum and Explosives Organisation and the police. A court in Ramanathapuram had earlier allowed a police plea for shifting the explosives, recovered from the backyard of a house at Thangachimadam while digging for a septic tank on June 25.

The explosives, kept near the site itself all these days, were shifted to Sivaganga, over 120 km from here, for safe keeping at the godown before being defused, police said.

Earlier, a Deputy Controller of Explosives of the Petroleum and Explosives Organisation after inspecting the explosives had said the landmines could be defused only by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) personnel as their fuse system was complex.

The locals have been raising apprehension about their safety in view of the delay in defusing the explosives, which have been kept in a pit in wet conditions in the area. The items seized included eight rolls of wires for connecting the explosives, 20 land mines, 11 packets of explosive chemicals, 15 hand grenades, 400 automatic rifle bullets.

The arms and ammunition are suspected to have been buried by Sri Lankan Tamil militant outfits some of whom had camped in the region in the 1980’s at the height of the ethnic war in the island nation.