The Pune Rural police late on Tuesday arrested a 71-year-old man and retrieved a large quantity of bomb-making material and explosives from his hut in the district’s Junnar tehsil.
The accused, Rajaram Abhang, was residing in a shanty in Junnar’s Pimpalwandi village.
According to authorities, the police, acting on a tip-off, raided the home of the accused and seized explosive-making material including a large quantity of gunpowder, equipment for making pipe bombs, two country-made electric gun machines, weapons like swords and javelins, and no less than 59 detonator parts.
The arrest and discovery of a huge cache of bomb-making materiel just ahead of the general elections created ripples throughout the Junnar area.
This is not the first that the suspect has been in police custody. “He [Abhang] was involved in an explosion in 2003 in which he allegedly tried to kill his wife after suspecting her of keeping illicit relations. But the plot misfired and Abhang was arrested and subsequently served time in Yerwada prison,” said an official of the Pune Rural police.
The accused has been booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act, said the police.
The authorities are probing whether he received any training and if the explosives were meant for any nefarious purpose.