Delay in explosives removal scares Rameswaram locals

Rameswaram: In a paradoxical situation facing the fishermen community of coastal Thangachimadam near here, where a huge ammunition cache was unearthed recently, two quick visits by experts from the Petroleum and Explosives Organisation within a week has only added to the people’s worries.

Even as the locals were hoping that quick action by the Ramanathapuram police, followed by extensive examination of the cache by the bomb detection and disposal squad (BDDS) will help to clear the site of the dangerous wide array of explosives, one of the experts from Chennai after an inspection told reporters here that only the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) could defuse the explosives like landmines due to their ‘complex fuse system’.

It is two weeks now that the massive ammunition cache was uncovered when the earth close to the seashore was dug for constructing a septic tank at the backyard of the house of a local resident A. Edison.

 The find literally opened up a Pandora’s Box, with the Ramanathapuram police and BDDS staff stumbling upon a staggering array of explosives and cartridges including that of SLR rifles.

The items seized included eight rolls of fuse wire for connecting the explosives, 20 land mines, 11 packets of explosive chemicals, 15 hand grenades, 400 automatic rifle bullets, rocket launchers, granite explosives, 58 TNT explosives and others.

They were packed neatly in different steel boxes and buried underground, suspected to have been done by Tamil terror oufit LTTE decades ago, when Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups had a free run in Tamil Nadu.

But what is creating apprehension among the people of Thangachimadam now is the delay in removing and defusing the explosives.

 To add to their fears was the reported statement by the deputy controller of explosives from Chennai, Mr. Sheikh Hussain that landmines could be defused only by DRDO experts.

He was accompanied to the site by his colleague Mr. Prasad Yadav. If the expert’s statement implied more time needed to defuse the explosives, is it safe to keep them in a fairly densely populated coastal stretch where inhabitants are mostly poor fishermen, they ask.

“These explosives have been unearthed after nearly 30 years and this is the first such large ammunition cache uncovered in this area.

A wedding is to take place in the household at the backyard of which these explosives were found while digging a pit for a septic tank; but as the police have again covered the explosives and are keeping a watch, the family is unable to make the wedding preparations,” says Chinnathambi, an office-bearer of the traditional catamaran fishermen’s federation.

“As there are a large number of households in the vicinity, everyone is apprehensive about their safety and police and other officials should take steps to immediately remove all the explosives,” adds Chinnathambi. “Every time the officials come for inspection, people's fears are only increasing as steps are not being taken to either defuse all the explosives or take them away to some other place for destruction,” rues Ms Tamizharasai, from the local fisher-folk community.

Just as the cartridges and bullets were taken to Ramanathapuram for defusing them, similarly other explosives still kept buried at Thangachimadam should also either be defused quickly or taken away to some other place where they can be deactivated, the locals here plead.