New Delhi: The National Investigating Agency personnel launched a major crackdown in Mizoram on Friday (June 24), amidst reports of explosives meant for construction works being funneled to a Myanmar-based militant outfit fighting that country’s military junta. The NIA conducted searches in the Aizawl, Champhai, and Kolasib districts of the north-eastern state in connection with the seizure of a huge quantity of explosives in the state in January this year.
The NIA in a press release issued on Saturday said 2,421.12 kgs of explosives, including 1,000 detonators and 4,500 meters of detonating fuse, were seized from a vehicle in the Zawnling area under Tipa police station in Saiha district in Mizoram. “The huge consignment was meant for a Myanmar-based outfit Chin National Front (CNF), which is in the process of accumulating arms and ammunition for resisting the Government of Myanmar,” the NIA release stated.
Ever since the military seized power in Myanmar on February 1 last year, a series of such seizures of explosives, particularly gelatin rods, have been made by the security forces in Mizoram, which shares a 510-km long porous border with the neighboring country. Around 50,000 Myanmar refugees mostly from the Chin state have taken refuge in Mizoram since the coup.
Indian security agencies suspect that some CNF rebels are among the refugees and that they are sourcing explosives from some districts in the northeast. “All consignments of explosives recovered in the state in the recent past were to be smuggled to Myanmar. This clearly shows that the rebel groups are sourcing incendiaries from the northeast,” said an official.
Even last month huge quantities of explosives were recovered in a series of raids in the state, the official said. The seized items include over 11,000 gelatin rods, a large number of detonators, boxes of safety fuse, air guns, and other materials. In March this year, three people were killed when an explosive-laden pick-up truck accidentally caught fire in an Aizawl workshop.
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The gelatin or simply jelly is an explosive material consisting of collodion-cotton (a type of nitrocellulose or gun cotton) dissolved in either nitro-glycerine or nitro-glycol and mixed with wood pulp and sodium nitrate or potassium nitrate. Gelatin rods or sticks are put together for explosions triggered by a detonator. It is one of the cheapest explosives often used in road construction and mining works to blast rocks.
The security agencies suspect that the gelatin obtained by some of the north-eastern states for road construction works is reaching the Myanmar militant outfits. The home ministry earlier this year directed the Mizoram and Meghalaya government to conduct an audit of the gelatin obtained by them for road construction and other activities, sources in the Mizoram government said. (With agency inputs).
