Bengal cops seize 20,000 gelatine sticks from pick-up van in Birbhum

KOLKATA: West Bengal’s Birbhum district police seized around 20,000 gelatine sticks from a pick-up van in the Nalhati area on Tuesday night, police said. One person has been arrested in connection with this case.

“The vehicle was detained during a naka check on the Sultanpur–Nalhati Road. It was coming from Pakur in Jharkhand with 50 bags or approximately 20,000 gelatine sticks that were procured and transported illegally,” Birbhum superintendent of police (SP) Amandeep said.

“An investigation is ongoing in coordination with the Pakur police,” he added.

The arrested man, identified by the police as Narayan Ghosh, a resident of Birbhum, was produced before the Rampurhat court on Wednesday and remanded in police custody for three days.

Gelatine sticks and detonators are used in large quantities in the stone quarries across the Rampurhat sub-division of Birbhum, and there have been numerous incidents of police seizing illegal consignments in the past.

Deocha Pachami, one of the world’s largest coal blocks, is also located in Rampurhat.

“No terror connection was ever found in any of the seizures in the past. These explosives are sometimes used for illegal mining. Also, stone quarry owners who exhaust their quota approved by the government sometimes procure gelatine sticks and detonators from miners in Jharkhand. But that is illegal,” a state intelligence department officer said, requesting anonymity.

In April 2023, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) took over a case registered by the special task force (STF) of the West Bengal police for the seizure of 81,000 detonators and some ammonium nitrate at Muhammad Bazar in Birbhum, West Bengal, in July 2022.

The STF had seized the explosive material from a goods vehicle and arrested two suspects.

NIA told the court in connection with this case that the detonators were sold to people who did not have licence to stock explosives.