Ranchi, May 25: A small culvert on the NH-33 between Ranchi and Jamshedpur in Jharkhand was blown up near Tamar early this morning in an abortive attempt to booby-trap police personnel patrolling the highway.

One bomb found from there was defused this afternoon while another went off in the presence of policemen. However, no casualty was reported.

A deafening sound of can bomb, fitted through a 200m wire to a timer, was much to break the sleep of residents of village Rugri and Roladih along the highway about 2.45am. “We waited till morning to know what happened and found that a bomb had exploded near the culvert destroying it partially,” said Harmohan Mahto of village Rugri, about 55km from here.

The part of the highway — which was never targeted before today — was repaired this morning.

Sources said that the target was police vehicles which are active in Tamar police station area for combing operations after the loot of ICICI Bank’s Rs 5.7 crore and over a kg of gold coins from a transit van of a private security firm on May 21.

Ranchi senior superintendent of police M.S. Bhatia, at present camping in Tamar with sub-divisional police officer Sanjay Ranjan Singh, said the explosion was basically a booby trap. “Two more can bombs were planted over the ground and had the police gone at the spot in the early morning hours itself, it could be dangerous for them,” said Bhatia.

The sources said that the rebels’ intention behind the blast was also to divert attention of the men in khaki whose five different teams have been conducting joint operations against the Naxalites in Tamar and its adjoining areas for the last couple of days.

The police were also receiving hoax calls over the transit of the money.

“Yesterday we received information that the booty is being transported to some other destination in a black Bolero. But the tip-off was wrong,” said a police officer.

In the past few days after the loot, the Maoists have targeted a hotel on the highway in Bundu, about 40km from here, and have fired indiscriminately while crossing the forest patches on both sides of road.

The police tasted success yesterday when it recovered a huge amount of explosives from a Naxalite camp near Barigada forests, off the NH-33.

The explosives included 3,000 gelatine sticks and 500-metre wire while camp items included four PVC tanks, one Motorola wireless set, uniform, Naxalite literature and compact discs.