Unearthed explosives shifted to govt godown

In a relief to local residents, the huge cache of explosives and arms unearthed near here nearly a month ago was today shifted to a government explosives' godown in neighbouring Sivaganga district amid tight security, police said.

The explosives, including land mines and grenades, were loaded in a vehicle in a day-long operation supervised by Ramanathapuram PrincipalDistrictandSessionsJudge A. Kayalvizhi, officials of the Petroleum and Explosives Organisation and police personnel.

A court in Ramanathapuram had earlier this week allowed a police plea for shifting the explosives, recovered from the backyard of a house at Thangachimadam while digging for a septic tank on June 25.

The explosives, kept near the site itself all these days, were shifted to Sivaganga, over 120 km from here, for safe keeping at the godown before being defused, police said.

Earlier, a Deputy Controller of Explosives of the Petroleum and Explosives Organisation after inspecting the explosives had said the landmines could be defused only by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) personnel as their fuse system was complex.

The locals have been raising apprehension about their safety in view of the delay in defusing the explosives, which have been kept in a pit in wet conditions in the area.

The items seized included eight rolls of wires for connecting the explosives, 20 land mines, 11 packets of explosive chemicals, 15 hand grenades, 400 automatic rifle bullets.

The arms and ammunition are suspected to have been buried by Sri Lankan Tamil militant outfits some of whom had camped in the region in the 1980's at the height of the ethnic war in the neighbouring island nation.