After sitting on files for years,Govt bans open sale of ammonium nitrate

The gazette notification clarified that fertilisers from which either ammonium nitrate or any of its combination cannot be extracted would not be classified as explosives.

Four years after the Indian security establishment first admitted the largescale diversion and theft of ammonium nitrate which has been frequently used in bomb blasts since 2006 the government today declared ammonium nitrate or any combination containing more than 45 per cent of ammonium nitrate as an explosive substance under the Explosive Act 1884 ,thereby curtailing its sale.

The gazette notification clarified that fertilisers from which either ammonium nitrate or any of its combination cannot be extracted would not be classified as explosives.

In 2007,the then home secretary,Madhukar Gupta,had alerted all state governments about the free diversion of the substance. At that time,as reported by The Indian Express October 8,2007,it was found that 20,000 kgs of slurry explosives had been stolen with little or no police action. What followed was a clear shift of terror groups from RDX to ammonium nitrate,as evident in the blasts in Varanasi,Malegaon,Hyderabad,Pune and the recent attacks in Mumbai.

In December 2007,the government set up a high-level committee,which first debated the possibility of bringing ammonium nitrate under the ambit of the Arms Act. This was followed by a proposal to include it under the 1908 Explosive Substances Act,and then later a suggestion for it to be simultaneously categorised as an explosive in the Explosive Act 1884.

In its 43-page report,the committee had warned that there are increasing number of reports of the use of ammonium nitrate for subversive activities,its easy availability and capability to cause harm with minimum cost or effort8230;

But no action was taken,and it was only a day before the Bangalore bomb blast in 2008 that the Union Law Ministry approved its inclusion in the 1908 Act,thus making its use for endangering life or property a crime inviting death penalty or rigorous life imprisonment.

After the recent Mumbai attacks,the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion realised that the Law Ministrys approval for inclusion of ammonium nitrate in the Explosive Act 1884 had been lying in the Commerce Ministry for almost a month.