Paramilitary forces have seized around 200 gelatin stick explosives weighing around 21 kg during a combing operation in Odisha’s Maoist-hit Malkangiri district.
The gelatin sticks are powerful water-resistant explosives made of a jellylike mass of nitroglycerin and lower-nitrated cellulose nitrate. Maoists have often used them to target security forces.
A Border Security Force officer in Malkangiri said the explosives were seized a following a tip-off on Thursday. The explosives were stuffed into sacks and dumped in different locations of a forest and concealed in deep crevices.
The seizure came a day after Maoists killed two people, including a former deputy sarpanch, on suspicion of being police informers in neighbouring Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh.
In July, police in Malkangiri recovered 14 detonators, 10 rounds of live ammunition, one .303 gun and one magazine from a Maoist camp.