Huge Siliguri explosives haul leaves cops puzzled

HT, 7 Nov 2016, SILIGURI: A huge cache of explosives and detonators, enough to blow up a large part of this North Bengal city, was seized from a residence here on Saturday night. Three Nepalese citizens were arrested in connection with the haul.

Acting on a tip-off, the police raided a rented house near Darjeeling More and seized 609 gelatin sticks, 200 detonators and 630 metres of codex cables that are used in explosive devices. Dawa Tshering Bhutia aka Dawa Gurung (50), his wife Puja Limboo (35) and Krishna Prasad Adhikari (40) were arrested.

The incident immediately brought back memories of the terror bust, after an accidental blast, in Burdwan’s Khagragarh on October 2, 2014. In that case too, explosives were seized from a rented place where a couple had been staying for nearly a year.

The police did not rule out the Siliguri casee’s link with any terrorist outfit. Further investigations are under way, senior police officers said on Sunday evening. CS Lepcha, the police commissioner of Siliguri, said, “The explosives were adequate to wreak massive damage to Siliguri.”

A senior army officer agreed with Lepcha and said, “The total amount of explosives seized was enough to leave several people dead and reduce a major portion of entire Siliguri to rubble.”

Lepcha said that Dawa once used to work for a coal mine in Shillong, Meghalaya, before it shut down. The couple moved to Siliguri about a year back and opened a fast food joint to get by. Adhikari, who was employed as a security guard at the joint, had even been to Malaysia and Kuwait.

The huge explosives haul came days after intelligence reports warned of a terror strike in Siliguri, especially in areas close to Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.

The three were produced in a local court on Sunday before being taken into custody for further interrogation.

Following the haul, the police urged all residents of Siliguri to check the bonafides of people seeking rented accommodation and keep the cops informed.

A senior investigating officer said, “The primary objective of the investigation is to find out if the explosives were meant to be used in Siliguri or were to be sent to some other place. We will also probe if the trio was working for any terrorist organisation.”