Explosive material seized at Ambaulim, Karnataka man held

Quepem: Quepem police late Wednesday evening seized a large quantity of banned explosive material at Ambaulim, Quepem.
The seized material consisted of 86 bags of ammonium nitrite each weighing 50kg, 500 detonators termed as ammonium super plain detonators and 8 bags each containing 25 coils of safety fuse wire for blasting.
Police arrested Mohedin Choudhary from Karnataka who had kept the material in a rented room belonging to Josinho Fernandes from Ambaulim.The accused was residing at Margao.
Elaborating on the entire operation, a source said that after receiving information on the presence of some dangerous material in the premises at Ambaulim, police laid a trap to nab the accused.
Pretending to be civilians, police personnel informed the accused that they knew about the explosives and threatened to inform police if the man failed to give them 3 lakh. The accused agreed to pay the amount and a meeting was arranged at Quepem. A police team led by PI Ram Asare then arrested the accused as he was negotiating with the police team who were pretending to be civilians.
Soon after the arrest, the police sealed the rented room and called in the bomb disposable squad. PI Asare said that more arrests are expected and even the owner of the rented house could be detained for renting his premises without police verification of his tenants.
On condition of anonymity, a local informed that when he noticed two trucks unloading bags in the morning in the rented room, he thought they were fertilizers for agricultural operations.
Quepem DySP Subhash Goltekar said no more details could be revealed as it could hamper investigations.