Explosive material including detonators and gelatin sticks that were to be transported to Kerala by train were seized from a woman at Salem Railway Junction in the early hours of Wednesday.
Senior officials in Railway Police told ‘The Hindu' that their patrolling unit saw a couple with a huge bag standing in a suspicious manner on Platform Number 1 at the Railway Junction here to board the Pondicherry-Mangalore Special Express train. When they attempted to enquire, the man ran away leaving the woman behind with the baggage.
On enquiry, the police found 150 gelatin sticks, 45 detonators and 3 kilogram of Ammonium Nitrate in the bag. They detained the woman who was identified as one Kavitha (25) from Nungampadi village in Tiruvannamalai district. She told the police she and her husband Palani (32), who ran away, were posing as genuine passengers to smuggle the explosive materials to Talassery in Kerala where the demand for the same is heavy.
Kavitha said that they usually transport the dangerous material in bus. She said that since police vigilance especially after the spate of bank robberies had increased, the couple preferred to travel in train for the first time. They transported the material to Salem from Tiruvannamalai by bus on Tuesday night.
Railway Police DSP P Nachimuthu said that special teams were formed to nab Palani and an enquiry was going on to trace the source of explosives. He also congratulated Sub Inspector Manikandan and Woman Sub Inspector Karthikeyani who arrested the woman.
Man killed
In another incident, a 75-year old man was killed on the spot when explosive material he handled went off at his clandestine cracker manufacturing unit at Omalur near here on Wednesday.
The impact of the explosion was so huge that the body of the victim, Chinnappan, was totally mutilated. The people of Omalur town heard a loud noise when the unit went up in smoke. The entire thatched mud unit was reduced to rubble.
Police said that the deceased was the father of one C. Periyaponnu who owned a licensed fire works go-down at Omalur town. He had stored different varieties of crackers, which were used for festivals and functions in the locality. Behind the licensed godown, they also operated a clandestine manufacturing unit in which the explosion took place on Wednesday killing his father instantly who was then engaged in manufacturing country crackers and rockets.
Mettur RDO S Soorya Prakash inspected the site. Omalur police are conducting a detailed enquiry.
