Alarm bells ring yet explosives get stolen by the stockpile

That describes the scale of theft and loot of explosives,detonators and timer devices from magazines (stores for explosives),mines and manufacturers year after year.

Data obtained from the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO) — under the Commerce Ministry — through a Right to Information application filed by The Indian Express has revealed an astonishing scale of annual theft each year,hundreds of kilograms of ammonium nitrate-based explosives,thousands of detonators and thousands of meters of detonating fuses are stolen and recoveries are negligible.

This after a 44-page secret report of the Government — available with The Indian Express — had categorically stated in 2008 that intelligence reports and police inputs had confirmed that there was “connivance’’ between transporters carrying explosives and their employees with terror groups.

Some of the startling revelations:

* In the past two years (2010-July 2011) alone,218,624 detonators (from Jharkhand,Madhya Pradesh,Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh) were stolen.

* As much as 1,907 kg of ammonium nitrate-based explosives,3,500 m of detonating fuse and 16.58 tonnes of emulsion matrix (a key ingredient of explosives) were stolen from across the country in two years.

* Theft of explosives in Naxalite bastions are also ringing alarm bells. As much as 17,300 kg of ammonium nitrate was stolen from Orissa in 2009; 18,097 m of safety fuse and detonating fuse from Bastar,Chhattisgarh in 2006.

* In Dantewada,one of the worst hit by Naxals,2,500 electronic detonators were stolen in 2009.

* Only in one case in the last five years was “substantial” recoveries made — of explosives reported stolen on June 5,2011 from a granite company in Karnataka.

* Against almost all thefts,the status is the same: “nil recoveries.”

* The explosives have been stolen from a range of organisations,including Steel Authority of India Limited in Durg,Chhattisgarh; Western Coalfields Limited in Chindwara,MP; NMDC in Bailadila. Many private mines and explosives manufacturers have also been targeted.

None of these thefts has ever hit headlines or prompted an aggressive investigation.

PESO officials admit,in private,that even these theft figures are a “fraction” of what’s actually pilfered given the fact that reporting of theft is extremely lackadaisical.

In the remaining places where sizeable thefts of explosives occuired,PESO units have simply filed “nil recoveries” against entries.

While officials in PESO and the Union Home Ministry agree that a sizeable portion of the stolen explosives and explosive material would be diverted for illegal mining,the fact that a huge portion of the heist is also used by terrorists and Naxalites has been widely accepted.

It was in 2007 that The Indian Express had first reported on the scale of stolen explosives. Figures for 2004-2006 revealed that a huge stockpile of 86,899 detonators,20,150 kg of slurry explosives,52,740 m of detonating fuse and 419 kg of gelatin sticks were stolen from magazines and explosive vans.

Subsequently,in 2007,the Government appointed a high-level group headed by the Union Home Secretary which a year later prepared the secret report on the manufacture,transportation and diversion of explosives including ammonium nitrate,which by then had replaced RDX as the favoured choice of explosive for terror attacks.