An army man with two of the three explosives that were recovered . Pictures by Main Uddin Chisti

Cooch Behar, March 23: Three powerful explosives fitted with detonators were recovered by police and the army in a joint operation from a garbage dumping ground on the banks of the Manasi river.

The bombs, the army said, were to be used by terrorist groups during the first ever elections to Bhutan’s National Assembly tomorrow.

Acting on a tip-off, the security forces had jointly raided the spot in Mathabhanga town, 40km from here. Although security forces said the explosives were battery-run, no batteries were found. The combing operation on the riverbank had started around 11am. The army had come with metal detectors and its bomb squad. It took the forces a few minutes to find the explosives, weighing 500gm each, buried 1.5ft below the ground.

“They have been sent for tests to ascertain how powerful they are. We believe that the bombs had arrived from Bangladesh and militant organisations like Huji and Bengal Tiger Force are behind it,” a police official said.

The subdivisional police officer of Mathabhanga, Ananda Roy, said: “A team of at least 10 army men, headed by the Lt Colonel of Binnaguri army base, Niraj Bakshi, had sought our assistance to dig out the explosives from the riverbank. The seized bombs would be returned to us on Tuesday,” Roy said.

The police officer, however, refused to say if Bangladeshi militants were involved. “We have started our own inquiry and have learnt from army intelligence that militants outfits from across the border have been using Mathabhanga as a corridor to reach Bhutan,” he said.

Earlier, KLO militants used the Mathabhanga-Shalkumar-Jaldapara-Hashimara route to flee to camps in the Himalayan Kingdom. Intelligence officials said the Bangladeshi militants are now using the same route to disrupt peace in Bhutan before the polls.