Bhubaneswar: A joint operation by the police and district officials under ‘Operation Prahar’ led to the seizure of a large cache of illicit crackers and explosives in K. Sitapur village under Kashinagar police station in Gajapati district.
The raid was conducted based on a tip-off at the residence of G Bhaskar Rao, where the police recovered crackers worth approximately Rs 15 lakh.
The seized items include 50 plastic sacks full of palm leaf crackers, 30 paper crackers, 70 kg of gunpowder, 15 kg of electric powder, 18 paper rolls, three big twine bombs, and two big sparkle bombs. The police officer-in-charge of Kashinagar police station, Sunil Kumar Behera, was present during the seizure.
District SP Yatindra Nath Panda and SDPO Madhavananda Nayak visited the Kashinagar police station to oversee the operation and briefed the media about the seizure. The police are investigating the source of the illicit crackers and the people involved in their manufacture.