Detonator lands in Chief Secretarys office

BHUBANESWAR: The Chief Secretary’s office on Friday evening received a letter packet containing a detonator prompting the police to send a team after the sender.  The sender identified himself as Jagan Panda, head of the Dhenkanal-Keonjhar unit of CPI(Maoist), but the veracity of the claim is being ascertained.Preliminary investigation suggested that it was a Class II electric detonator that did not have a circuit, which means it could not explode. “Most detonators contain small amount of explosive materials. This one did not have any. Nor did it have the circuit,” said a police source.About a week back, a similar packet __ and a similar detonator __ had landed at the State Election Commissioner (SEC)’s office. It was attached with a letter and contents of the two letters are identical. Both the letters came from Kankadahada in Dhenkanal.The sender complained about proliferation of alcohol in the region by Bihari mafia and how the Excise and police officials are hand-in-glove with them. The letter also described the poor state of affairs in  Kamakhsyanagar Hospital with huge vacancies and non-attendance of doctors and threatened to blow it up with explosives. The letter also stated that the plight of the area had been conveyed to past Chief Secretary T K Mishra, but the Government is not taking any action.Once the content of the packet was revealed, the bomb detection squad reached the CS’ office and the parcel was taken away. A case has been registered with Capital Police Station and Commissionerate Police will shortly send a team to Kamakhsyanagar to inquire into it.Besides, the police have decided to send in a request to the Department of Posts to scan such letters. “We will write to the postal department requesting them to scan bulk mails addressed to top officials and dignitaries to ward off any trouble in future,” Police Commissioner Bijay Kumar Sharma said. A circular will also be issued to heads of departments and secretariat by the Home department asking the staff to be careful in handling mails.The device will be sent to State Forensic Science Laboratory for preliminary examination. Sharma said the sender appears to be the same person in the both the cases.