Kolkata, Dec 17 (IANS): West Bengal Police on Sunday said that they have recovered huge quantities of explosives from an abandoned stone quarry in Birbhum district of the state.

Police said that the explosives were recovered at an abandoned quarry in the Chandanpur area on Saturday evening.

“The seized items include 150 boxes of detonators, six boxes of detonators and 14 kilogram of ammonium nitrate,” the police said.

Police said that the owner of the quarry Kalin Handa died a few years back and since then the quarry had been lying in abandoned condition.

The police said an investigation is underway.

NIA is already investigating an old case regarding recovery of 81,000 detonators from a passenger van in the Muhammadbazar area of Birbhum district on June 30, 2022.

The detonators were seized by the sleuths of the Special Task Force (STF) of State Police leading to the arrest of three persons.

The NIA took charge of the investigation on September 29 of the same year and filed the chargesheet in the case within 90 days after the beginning of the investigation.

In July, this year the NIA also arrested a local Trinamool Congress leader from Birbhum Manoj Ghosh regarding the same case.

The use of detonators is quite common in pockets of Birbhum, which houses a number of stone quarries. The detonators are used to blast stone blocks in the area for the purpose of use in stone quarries.