Raipur, May 10: Police are investigating whether Saturday’s Maoist attack on a Hindalco mining unit in Chhattisgarh’s Saridih village was aimed at looting the company’s stock of mining explosives.

Having failed to locate the stocks, the rebels might have razed the buildings out of frustration, an officer earlier posted in the area said.

The theory is bolstered by the fact that a group of Naxalites had raided a Hindalco mining unit in October 2003 and taken away over 100 kg of explosives.

?The company, however, now keeps its explosives at a secret place and so the Maoists had little chance of success,? inspector-general of police, Sarguja range, A.N. Upadhyay told The Telegraph today.

Ever since the 2003 attack, the Hindalco unit had been storing its explosives somewhere in Kusmi, about 28 km from the village, from where consignments were ferried to Saridih every day.

On Saturday evening, about 200 Maoists, some of them wielding AK-47s, had swooped down on the facility, some 490 km from state capital Raipur, and used the company bulldozer to flatten staff quarters, a guest house, offices and a laboratory.

A preliminary probe had suggested that the reason for the attack was the Maoists’ resentment against the company for providing rooms to policemen patrolling in the area, an officer said.

But another officer said: ?The Maoists’ aim was not only to unleash terror. If that were the case, they could have attacked the establishment much earlier.?

The deputy inspector-general of police (intelligence), Sanjay Pillai, said: ?The police are investigating all aspects of the attack.?

This afternoon, security personnel fought a fierce gun battle with a group of Maoists in the Mahudera forests near Saridih. A huge quantity of arms, 23 detonators, two Motorola wireless sets and other equipment were seized from the spot.

The police have found vital clues that this particular group of Naxalites was involved in the Saridih attack, Pillai said.

Sources in Sarguja said the company, India’s largest producer of copper and aluminium, had resumed mining and transportation this morning.

Office work, however, is stalled because the Maoists destroyed buildings, burnt records and damaged the laboratory.

?It will take at least a month or two to resume normal work as there is no building left in the mine area,? a source said.