Explosive find: Diggers unearth 60 live bombs from ’65 war in Rajasthan

While digging the foundation for a stadium in Barmer in Rajasthan, border home guards stumbled on some explosive heritage, literally. They found 60 live mortar shells from 1965.

They have isolated the bombs into a pit, sealed it off and called the Army to handle the cache.

"Ammunition experts and engineers will inspect the bombs and note their origin, their present strength and other features. A plan to defuse them will thereafter be chalked out. It has also to be determined whether these bombs can be destroyed in-situ or whether they have to be taken to a different location. In case they are defused in-situ, we have to study whether there will be any collateral damage," said Colonel S D Goswami, a spokesperson for the Defence Ministry.

Tags on the shells are marked 1965 so it is all but certain they were meant for use in the India-Pakistan war. The border home guards office in Barmer was used as an Army trench during the war.

The area was sanitised after the war but this cache was somehow missed, and over the years got buried deeper in earth. Then last week, the diggers came.

"The area where the shells are currently stored has been sealed off and no one is allowed access to them. Since they are live bombs we had to be extra careful not to disturb them though they look rusted and broken and do not pose any immediate threat," Barmer Superintendent of Police Rahul Barhat told The Indian Express.

Caches of arms and ammunition are found in border areas now and then, officials said, but in small numbers.

The discovery of such a large cache of live mortar shells, therefore, has not only alarmed the border home guards but also left the Army surprised.

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