Gang smuggles explosives from city for quarrying in Andaman

CHENNAI: Investigators of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands police say there is a strong Chennai connection to the smuggling of explosives to the Bay of Bengal archipelago. The explosives, they said, are being sourced from Chennai and Vellore and sent to the islands in barrels that the smugglers claimed contained grease. The explosive chemical ammonium nitrate, gelatin sticks and detonators were used in illegal quarrying operations in the Andamans, a high seismic risk area."The gang successfully smuggled 13 consignments to the islands but was caught by Andaman police teams during the next operation," South Andaman Island superintendent of police S B S Tyagi said. Andaman central crime police station house officer Girish Kumar said police teams, acting on a tip-off, conducted raids on a vessel that had berthed at Port Blair in June last year. "We found three blue plastic drums inside a container. When we opened them, we discovered that they were filled with more than 6,000 gelatin sticks and as many as 2,600 electronic detonators. The smugglers claimed at the customs that the barrels contained grease," he said. "We also recovered 10,000kg of ammonium nitrate in several gunny bags that had been declared as salt bags." Police arrested 19 people, including the mastermind of the gang, and suppliers of explosives in Chennai in June and July last year. The Andamans police have launched a hunt for Chennai-based businessman M Sadasivam, who runs a private shipping agency on Portuguese Street in Mannadi. "We have named Sadasivam a proclaimed offender," S P Tyagi said. "He controlled the cartel from Chennai and other cities in Tamil Nadu. His father Muthuraja, the owner of the shipping agency, was arrested by a police team in the Andamans last year." Smugglers continue to ferry ammonium nitrate to the Andamans. Officers from the Andamans on June 21 confiscated a consignment from Chennai of 10,000 kg of ammonium nitrate, 2,468 gelatin sticks and 6,000 detonators. Over the following week investigators arrested seven people including the kingpin of the racket, Abbas Mandiri, 55, from Sivaganga.After last year's bust, police discovered that the gang had smuggled more than 1.3 lakh kg of ammonium nitrate, electronic detonators and gelatin sticks. One of the accused smugglers, Abbas Manthry, 50, who was arrested by the Andamans police on June 29, 2011, has been brought to Chennai and admitted to Apollo Hospital with a heart problem.