Kasaragod: Kasaragod police arrested one person and seized a cache of explosives allegedly from his house in Muliyar grama panchayat in the early hours of Tuesday.
Mustafa, a resident of Kolichiyadukkam, has been charged with sections under the Explosive Substances Act, said Adhur station house officer - inspector Anil Kumar K.
The explosive cache was discovered by the Excise Department, which raided his house as part of a crackdown on bootlegging and arrack.
Excise officials knocked on his door around 12.30 am on Tuesday. "They saw an SUV parked on the compound with several cartons in the boot," said inspector Kumar.
On checking the boxes, they found the explosives and called in Adhur police.
Excise officers found around 2,800 gelatin sticks in 13 boxes, one dynamite, nearly 7,000 detonators, and five rounds of wires, said the officer. Some of them were recovered from his house, too.
When police were busy with the procedure, Mustafa slashed his wrist. He was taken to a private hospital in Kasaragod.
Mustafa told officers that he used to run granite quarries in Karnataka and now he supplied explosives to quarries there, said Kumar. To be sure, gelatin sticks are cheap explosives used by quarries. They are triggered by a detonator.
"We will have to verify his claim. In any case, it is illegal to store explosives in cars and houses. We will have to find the source of the explosives," he said. Explosives can be stored only in designated magazines of the quarries.
