AHMEDABAD, July 13: An alert police constable averted a major tragedy in Bhuj on Sunday when he found two kgs of tri-nitro toluene (TNT), a deadly explosive used by the Army to blast tanks, from an abandoned cotton bag in busy Khengar park area. Police also recovered a bi-cart strip, used to ditch enemies, from the hand-stitched bag.DSP Keshav Kumar told Ahmedabad Newsline that Prasad Upadhyay detected the explosive in the night when he was returning home. Prasad found a hand made bag of camouflaging Army colour, near the Khengar park area, one of the busiest residential areas in the town where people gather for fun and entertainment.Suspecting explosive material, he took the bag to the DSP and informed the headquarters. ``First police mistook it as highly explosive RDX. With the colour of the bag and the explosive material we were certain that it is an explosive. But what we did not know'', said Keshav Kumar.Later, some Army officers were contacted and unofficially on Monday noon it came out to be TNT. Police said there were eight slabs of TNT weighing 230 gm each, while the bi-cart strip contained 54 cartridges. More startling, police said, was the recovery of primers detonators used for blasting the explosives.``Two slabs of TNT were connected to the detonators'', Keshav Kumar said.The explosive slabs bear the marking of the Khurji ammunition factory. Army officers say the explosive can destroy anything within the radius of nine metres, while the blast can reduce a concrete structure to rubble.Officials say this was first seizure of any deadly explosive stolen from Army depot in the district, and added that the higher-ups in the Home Department were informed in today morning.The Army, meanwhile, is yet to whether the explosives were stolen from the Army depot or smuggled into the sensitive Kutch bordering Pakistan. Efforts to contact the Bhuj Army Commander and others proved futile.
