Patna, March 1: About five quintals of explosives wereseized and an employee of a transport agency was arrested during a raid in Rohtas district on Monday night.

Rohtas superintendent of police (SP) Manu Maharaj said: “Acting on a tip-off, police conducted the raid at the office of a transport agency at Sasaram and arrested its manager Kailash Singh on Monday night.” Police later seized around 500kg of ammonium nitrate from the godown of the transport agency.

The police sealed the godown and started a search for the person, who had booked the consignment. During interrogation, Kailash revealed the consignment was to be delivered to an explosive supplier Shahabuddin, a resident of Navratan Bazaar at Sasaram. Shahabuddin’s house was raided and police seized 21 bags of explosive today. Shahabuddin, however, managed to escape. “The explosives were stored to be supplied to the Maoists operating in the area,” Manu said adding a team of forensic experts had been called from Patna to test the seized consignment.

The SP said police were keeping a close watch on the activities of the explosive suppliers of the district. “The police had been tipped off about the consignment of explosives supplied to the Naxalites from the explosive suppliers,” he added.