With no eyewitnesses or CCTV cameras around an abandoned hut at Manor in Palghar district where 12 kilograms of RDX were found underground last month, the police have asked the Forensic Sciences Laboratory (FSL) in Kalina to conduct further tests to find out how long the explosives have been buried.
The Mumbai Police Crime Branch and the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad recovered the explosives on November 27 after two days of searching. They were wrapped in plastic, and subsequent tests by the FSL confirmed that they were RDX. Crime Branch officials said the investigating team has made extensive inquiries in the entire village but has failed to find any leads. “The hut is used by locals for liquor parties and we found empty bottles and cigarette packets there. Despite repeated inquiries, no one seems to have seen any suspicious persons around the hut or entering it over the past few months. There are no CCTV cameras around the area,” an officer said.
Another officer said if forensic tests can pinpoint how long the explosives have been buried based on the condition of the samples, inquiries can focus on that time period.
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“There have been several arrests, some of them in Mumbai and Thane, of people with links to the Islamic State (IS). There is a strong possibility that the RDX might have been meant for them to use for a terror attack. The youths arrested for IS links in Parbhani had even assembled IEDs, and the ones arrested in Mumbai and Thane were given similar training online by their handlers in Syria,” said another officer.
The Crime Branch and the ATS recovered the explosives on November 27 after two days of searching