Thursday, December 13, 2007

Thrissur bus stop explosives were to be smuggled to Lanka

Police probing the recovery of a large quantity of detonators at a bus stand in Thrissur suspect that the explosives were to be smuggled into Sri Lanka.

A gunny bag containing 10,000 detonators, placed in 100 boxes, was found at a bus stand. Two people were arrested in connection with the incident.

It was the investigation into the dealings of Najeeb, one of those arrested, that helped police in unravelling the Sri Lankan connection. Kerala police conducted the probe along with Tamil Nadu police.

"Najeeb used to take the detonators to Meenakshipuram in Tamil Nadu and hand it over to a person called Biji. From the description we got from Najeeb, we presume that this person, a Sri Lankan refugee, is a notorious criminal who has many criminal charges against him," Circle Inspector T.C. Venugopal of Thrissur East police station said. Thrissur is 70 km north of Kochi.

Venugopal said Najeeb had been transporting detonators to Meenakshipuram for 10 months before being arrested.

"He had delivered around 150,000 detonators to Biji. These detonators are usually used in quarries but Najeeb says that these were purchased for fishing purposes.

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