Paramilitary forces patrol Saranda. Telegraph file picture

Jamshedpur, Sept. 3: A day after police recovered a powerful landmine from Sonua under the Saranda forest region of West Singhbhum, security forces intensified search operations today.

Buoyed by the recovery of the explosive device, the police and paramilitary forces expanded their search area from Sonua to Goelkera.

The police and the paramilitary teams are using hi-tech devices to detect the landmines, suspected to have been planted beneath both murum as well as metalled roads across the Saranda forest area.

Police believe that the CPI(Maoist) had planted the landmines prior to parliamentary elections in April 2009.

Landmines were also recovered from Sonua on the eve of polling, and around Saranda later.

These recoveries were made on the basis of information provided by villagers and intelligence inputs.

Police recently launched a drive anticipating the presence of more landmines in the forests, said West Singhbhum superintendent of police Akhilesh Kumar Jha.

“We have been able to detect some of them, but we want to carry out an intensive search, involving villagers as well as equipment,” the superintendent of police told The Telegraph.

Jha said they would scan roads leading to Sonua, Goelkera and Manoharpur.

It seems that the recovery of the Saranda mines has made both forest officers and police personnel anxious.

Earlier in July 2009, 10 policemen died of a landmine blast, cementing the possibility of the presence of landmines planted in Saranda. Fearing further blasts, forest officers have restricted their movement in Saranda.

The 10 policemen, including a CRPF inspector, were killed when the vehicle they were travelling in was blown up in a landmine blast triggered by Naxalite guerrillas at Sarugera village in Goelkera police station area within the Saranda forest limits of West Singhbhum.

The policemen were returning from a two-day long-range patrolling when the blast took place.