Explosives stolen from SAMBU office recovered, five held

PESHAWAR, Jan 5: Chitral Scouts on Saturday recovered huge quantity of explosives stolen on Feb 15 last year from the warehouse of a Korean construction company and arrested five accused. SAMBU, the company engaged in construction of Golen Gol hydro power project, had lodged an FIR against unknown miscreants for the theft of 550 kilograms of explosives from the store, which was being used to construct tunnel for the hydro-power project. The police since than had been searching for the accused had failed to find any clue to the explosives which was feared that might have fallen in to terrorists’ hands. Sources in Chitral Scouts said a driver of the SAMBU Company, Muhammad Din who had been the prime suspect, had been arrested from Koghozi area of Chitral along with Ihsan and Tanveer besides two other accused. “Nine cartons of explosives weighing 25 kilograms each have been recovered from the houses and other hide-outs of the arrested during raids on Jan 2 and search is continuing for the remaining quantity of the explosives,” the official sources said. The sources added that the explosives had been sold out by Muhammad Din and his accomplices for Rs18000 per carton. About possible use of the stolen explosives in any terrorism incident, the officials said that so far no such incident had been reported but most likely it might have been used for illegal mining and blasting. Police source in Chitral say that they are so far not aware of the developments.–Dawn]]>