Rourkela, Oct. 21: Rourkela police today sent a man to judicial custody for selling firecrackers illegally.

The cops arrested him for hoarding a large quantity of crackers without a licence.

Kalim Khan was arrested on October 19 for allegedly storing a huge quantity of firecrackers. Acting on a tip off, the Sector-15 police had raided the place where the crackers were stacked. The cops said the firecrackers had been stored inside a quarter that belonged to Rourkela Steel Plant.

A local resident said Khan, who lived in a slum in Sector-15, used to source the crackers from various place and stored them there. Over the past couple of days, Khan's business had been booming with Diwali around the corner. However, people living in the locality, who did not oppose him openly, secretly informed the police. On Wednesday afternoon, a police team led by inspector in charge of Sector-15 police station Ram-esh Dora raided the quarter and found firecrackers.

The quarter was not allotted to anybody, said a senior steel plant official. A police official said Khan had been conveniently been conducting business from the quarter since it was vacant.

The police recovered locally made firecrackers worth more than Rs 1.5 lakh that had been sourced from Balasore, Mayurbhanj and Cuttack.

Rourkela police superintendent Anirudha Singh said the police was being extra cautious in checking the illegal sale of firecrackers and a special team was looking into it.

"We are probing into the case to find out other people involved in the case and how Khan got possession of the quarter," Singh said.