Nagpur: Police are banking heavily on the explosives manufacturer’s batch number and the plastic wrapper in which gelatin sticks were packed as critical clues to crack the case that triggered a major security scare in the city on Tuesday. A suspicious green bag with 15 gelatin sticks, 58 detonators was recovered from the courtyard of a professor’s house near Dosar Bhavan Chowk.”The batch number on the ammunition will lead us to the intermediary after they were released from the manufacturing unit. The intermediary must have handed it over to some other player. We need to establish the chain,” said a police source.With no CCTV footage available and zero eyewitnesses coming forward, police are now focussing on details like barcodes and supplier records to track down the handler of the explosives. “According to PESO, the cache seized on Tuesday was released by the explosives manufacturer, much before the accident took place in their Katol unit on March 1 this year,” said a police officer. The plastic wrapper is also a strong clue as it carries names of shops or places of origin, he said.The wrapper’s printed details are being cross-checked with retail outlets and wholesale dealers to establish how high-powered industrial explosives ended up in wrong hands. Forensic teams have already collected materials and sent them for detailed analysis.Investigators and PESO are now learnt to be in touch with the manufacturer to verify production records, date of supply and authorised buyers, dealers, mostly licensed mining and quarrying firms in Maharashtra and neighbouring states.Preliminary inquiries suggest the cache could have been diverted from legitimate blasting operations used in road construction, mining quarries or well digging, but its presence in a densely populated area close to a sensitive landmark has raised concerns over possible terror links or smuggling rackets. This case once again highlights the vulnerability of the supply chain of commercial explosives, said a police source.Police hope physical evidence from batch numbers and wrapper will soon lead them to the culprits and prevent a larger conspiracy. Further updates are expected as the backward tracing gains momentum.
