Ranchi, Feb. 12: It was a “chest” pain for the Khunti police that evaded the right “diagnosis” for the past two days.

The local police stumbled upon a heavy iron chest, similar to the ones found during medieval history, on the outskirts of Hootar village, about 8 km from the town, two days back.

The rusty iron chest is about one-and-a-half-inch wide and 2-feet long.

A cow grazer informed a patrolling party about the “abandoned” chest raising eyebrows.

Explosives, suggested one, could be stockpiled by rebels to attack police while another felt that goons could have found it too heavy to shift it to a safe haven and hence deserted it.

After the senior police officials were informed of the iron chest, orders were issued to shift it to the Khunti police station without any further delay.

About 10 personnel had to be deployed to transport the chest. Right amount of sand and sacks were used to cover it, otherwise it explodes.

A team of explosive experts from the state capital was supposed to arrive at the police station to break open the chest and find out what is there in it.

“But this afternoon, two officials from the local cooperative office arrived at the police station claiming that it was their property. We have asked the officials to come tomorrow with the keys of the chest so that it could be opened in front of us,” said the deputy superintendent of police, Sanjeev Kumar.

The officials claimed that they have important loan documents in that chest and it is imperative for the police to return it.

However, the local police are questioning why the cooperative officials did not report the matter to the police, if it went missing from the office.

The police have decided to quiz the officials when they come tomorrow.

“Until the chest is opened, it is impossible to say anything. By tomorrow evening, all doubts shall be clear,” said the perplexed police personnel.