Talking to The Indian Express, Rao admitted that except for some 40 big purchasers like cement and iron-ore companies, the company has no idea what the 1100 distributors do with the detonators purchased from them. “The licensed distributors to whom we supply have a chain of hundreds of sub-dealers and small distributors and retail sellers under them. Frankly speaking, we cannot monitor even our main distributors who are spread across the country. After we submit our monthly reports it is up to the police and investigating agencies to check all that,” he says.

“Ìf our detonators were used for the wrong purpose, they could have been bought from anywhere, from any dealer or sub-dealer. How can anyone keep a check on this?”

Circle Inspector of Bhongir division Radhesh Murali says he receives monthly reports from the company. The Circle Inspector is also the officer required to conduct monthly inspections. “The reports don’t mean anything because they simply indicate the name of the purchaser and quantity. At the best we can make an assessment how many detonators were supplied by the company in a month. If a consignment goes missing, then it has to be investigated as to from where it went missing. The company has never lodged a complaint with us in all these years. Neither have we received any complaint from any purchaser,” said Murali, adding that he inspected the company’s stocks on July 20.

Theft of explosives and detonators came up on the government’s radar after ammonium nitrate was found in virtually every major terrorist attack. Last year, a high-level group was set up to conduct spot investigations on the quantum and areas of explosive pilferage. Government sources said officials from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) as well as the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) were meant to inspect facilities of large explosive manufacturers and conduct field investigations on leakages from mining sites and contractors.

... contd.