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RDX lies under debris of Bhuj police headquarters

Nearly 24 kgs of RDX remains buried under the debris of the district police headquarters in Bhuj after the building collapsed in the killer quake on January 26.

The state government has deferred plans to retrieve and destroy the explosive, seized in June 1999 from Pakistani infiltrators, as the army's explosive experts have yet to arrive.

However, District Superintendent of Police Vivek Srivastava said there was no threat of RDX exploding as it had been safely kept.

"The high-explosive RDX has been kept safely in magazines, which is under debris," Singh told PTI.

He said the police were awaiting experts from the Baroda-based Army Engineering Unit.

The explosive was seized from six Pakistani nationals at Veerani village in Kutch two years back.

The six Pakistanis were caught on June 4, 1999 and a score of Brazilian and Chinese pistols were also seized from them. As many as 22 Indian contacts were arrested from Kutch and Bombay in this connection.

Though all the Pakistanis managed to escape from Bhuj jail when it was damaged by the earthquake, four of them were re-arrested by the Border Security Force from the Sir Creek area and are now lodged in Sabarmati jail.

The Gujarat police has alerted the BSF as the leader of the six infiltrators, Quasim Sultan and his partner Saleem, are still at large and might attempt to cross over to Pakistan.

Meanwhile, the state police has kept the debris of the police headquarters under strict vigil as some anti-national elements might try to play mischief.

However, Srivastava brushed off all such fears and said, "The RDX is safe and it is next to impossible for anyone to try any tricks."

About the increased vigil at the debris of the police headquarters, Srivastava said, "It is routine."

Srivastava admitted the residents were still gripped by a fear psychosis fuelled by rumours that several criminals were coming with "swords and lathis" to loot them of whatever valuables they had left.

"Mental relief is the most important thing now and we are striving to provide that," he said claiming police had an "idea" of who could be behind some such incidents.

The district police also fears that evidence against some criminals might have been lost in the quake.

PTI

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