For over nine hours on Thursday, police officers on the road outside Nasirpur, an urban village in Delhi’s Sagarpur, were on high alert. Until late Thursday evening, the police team were waiting for officers from the National Security Guard (NSG) headquarters in Manesar to reach this nondescript village in a south-western corner of the Capital.
A drain cover on the footpath, with sand bags next to it, and police teams guarding it, were the focus of attention as curious passersby peeked to check what had been discovered at the spot — an old grenade, rusty on the outside, with parts of its surface chipped away by the years.
It wasn’t the police who first discovered the suspicious device.
On Thursday morning, a sanitation worker, cleaning drains as part of the civic body’s annual de-silting exercise before the monsoon, saw a round object in the drain.
A police officer who spoke to the cleaner said the man initially thought it was some sort of a metal ball. He checked with other workers, and they thought it looked like something they had seen in Hindi films — a hand grenade with the “safety pin” on.
Ingit Pratap Singh, deputy commissioner of police(south west), said: “At 11.55pm, we received a distress call on the 112 number about a sanitation worker discovering a grenade while cleaning a drain under the walkway. Immediately, the station house officer of the area rushed to the spot along with district bomb disposal team and found the old, corroded grenade at the spot. The district ballistics team safely placed it away from the crowded area, in an open space. Area around it has been buttressed using makeshift sandbags. A local police guard is posted there to ensure that no one goes near the grenade.”
{{/usCountry}}Ingit Pratap Singh, deputy commissioner of police(south west), said: “At 11.55pm, we received a distress call on the 112 number about a sanitation worker discovering a grenade while cleaning a drain under the walkway. Immediately, the station house officer of the area rushed to the spot along with district bomb disposal team and found the old, corroded grenade at the spot. The district ballistics team safely placed it away from the crowded area, in an open space. Area around it has been buttressed using makeshift sandbags. A local police guard is posted there to ensure that no one goes near the grenade.”
{{/usCountry}}Singh said police asked for the NSG’s assistance to ascertain the make and model of the grenade. Police suspect the grenade could be several decades old. They have no idea yet how it got there.
Till late Thursday evening, the NSG commandos were yet to reach the spot.
“We have been told the NSG team has left Manesar. There is nothing to worry. It is totally safe. It is an old grenade. It has the marking HE 36. Our officers wasted no time in checking it out on Google. We were told it isn’t in use these days. We alerted our senior officers, issued an alert and they have asked for the NSG. The situation is kind of funny but there is a protocol, and we have to follow it,” said an officer HT spoke to around 9pm.