Nagpur: Investigators suspect the quiet residential garden of a college principal, Ujwal Lanjewar, at Dosar Bhavan Chowk on Central Avenue was deliberately chosen as a temporary pick-up point or classic dead-drop by suspected terror operatives for short-distance courier movement of explosive material within the city.Notably, the explosives reportedly lay unnoticed in the garden for several days. According to an official, the place was chosen knowing well that it was not within CCTV coverage, and this is hindering the probe.Sources from city police said information has been sought from the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO) regarding the details of the seized material, including manufacturing dates, stock, despatch and other records.Lanjewar’s garden is located in a bustling residential-cum-commercial zone, within 5 km off the RSS headquarters and 1.5km off other important religious places of different communities. A MahaMetro facility is also in the vicinity. Suspected terror operatives may have found the location convenient to minimise travel time and exposure while moving the material towards potential targets, said sources. They said gaps in the iron fencing of the garden enclosure made it easier to keep the explosives there.The explosives — 15 gelatin sticks (live cartridges) and 58 detonators, including eight with connectors — were concealed in three plastic bags and weighed approximately 2kg in total. “The wire connectors of the detonators were also severed, which made them dysfunctional. But we are not ruling out foul play,” said a senior official.The recovery triggered a high alert across the city, particularly in sensitive areas, amid concerns that the material could have been used to assemble improvised explosive devices (IEDs) for strikes at crowded or symbolically important locations. Intelligence agencies and anti-terror squads are probing whether the cache was intended to “trigger havoc” in Nagpur. Investigation, involving multiple central and state agencies, is underway to unravel any possible terror module links. No arrests have been made so far.The probe continues to determine whether this cache was part of a larger network sourcing industrial explosives for potential misuse.“Gelatin sticks, commonly used in mining and quarrying, become highly dangerous when diverted for criminal or terror purposes, especially when paired with detonators capable of triggering blasts,” said an official.The gelatin sticks and detonators were manufactured in a Katol-based ammunition manufacturing company where a blast had killed 26 persons and injured several others in March this year. Police have identified one of the distributors of the company. A team of Zonal DCP Rahul Madane is questioning the distributor to establish who received the explosives, when the handover occurred and the exact supply chain.Teams from Ganeshpeth police station, along with other agencies, are also scanning CCTV footage from the surrounding area and conducting multiple rounds of interrogation to collect some clues.A case has been registered against unidentified persons under relevant sections of the Explosives Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).“The incident underlines how urban terror operatives can everyday residential spaces for modular, relay-style movement of explosives to reduce risk to core members,” said an official.
