Rohtas superintendent of police Chandan Kumar Kushwaha inspects an unauthorised stone quarry in Karwandia on Sunday. Picture by Sanjay Choudhary

Security personnel seized a huge cache of explosives from Dumarkoh village in Rohtas district.

The explosives, seized on Saturday evening, had been kept in boxes and were reportedly meant for carrying out attacks on security personnel during anti-Maoist drive.

The seizure in the village, around 200km west of Patna, was made on the first day of the four-day joint operation launched by Bihar and Uttar Pradesh police to flush out rebels from the two states.

Rohtas superintendent of police Chandan Kumar Kushwaha said the operation was launched on the basis of intelligence inputs, which hinted at congregation of senior armed squad members of the banned organisation on the plateau. “The security personnel will camp in villages, considered to be the hotbed of the Maoists, during the operation,” he said.

Kushwaha added that the personnel of the specially trained commandos of the CoBRA battalion and the Central Reserve Police Force have been inducted in the drive. “The UP officers are also cooperating with the team that launched the operation on specific intelligence inputs,” the SP added.

The SP said Saturday’s raid was the seventh major seizure of explosives in the past two months. Till date, 21,869 detonators, 7,400 gelatin sticks, 25kg of ammonium nitrate, 250 fuse wire have been recovered from Rohtas, he said, adding that over a dozen suppliers have also been apprehended.

“We are making all-out efforts to stop illegal stone quarrying in the district. The links of the Maoists with those stone quarrying mafia are being probed,” Kushwaha said.

Maoist arson

Suspected Maoists set five vehicles belonging to a private road construction company on fire at Mansoorchak village in Vaishali district late on Saturday night.

They also assaulted the employees deployed at the base camp of the company, awarded contract worth several crores for widening the NH-77 between Hajipur and Muzaffarpur. An FIR was lodged with the Sarai police station on Sunday.