160 Electric Detonators Found Near Bollarum Army Firing Range Amid Stolen Weapons Search

Hyderabad police have opened a separate case after Army personnel searching for stolen weapons from the 20 Madras Regiment armoury in Bollarum found 160 commercial electric detonators abandoned near the unit’s firing range. The detonators, discovered late Wednesday evening on private land near Golf Enclave in the Secunderabad Cantonment area, have triggered an investigation under the Explosive Substances Act even as the larger hunt for missing military stores continues.

Police said the explosives were not found on Army property but behind the rear boundary wall of the 20 Madras Regiment firing range, within the jurisdiction of Bollarum police station in the Malkajgiri Commissionerate. The recovery was made during an extensive search being carried out around the military installation after the theft of rifles, pistols and ammunition from the regiment’s armoury came to light.

According to officials, the detonators had been arranged in eight bundles of 20 each and placed in a light-green plastic bucket. Army personnel came across the bucket while combing the surrounding area as part of the continuing effort to trace the missing weapons and ammunition.

An Army Subedar informed Bollarum police, after which local police personnel and the Malkajgiri bomb disposal squad rushed to the spot. A sniffer dog named Rudra was also taken to the location as investigators examined the area.

The bomb disposal team identified the recovered material as 33A-size commercial electric detonators, typically used for controlled blasting in mining, quarrying and construction work. Police said the 160 detonators, valued at about Rs 32,000, were seized and moved to a secure location.

A Bollarum police officer said the explosives were found only because Army personnel were conducting a thorough search for the stolen firearms and ammunition. Investigators are now trying to determine where the detonators came from, who placed them at the spot and how long they had been lying there.

North Zone Deputy Commissioner of Police Ch. Sridhar said there was, so far, no evidence linking the detonators either to the Army establishment or to the weapons theft that prompted the search.

“The detonators were not found in army area but in a private venture and it is not an army property. The detonators are suspected to be used by land or plot developers there at least before one year or above,” Sridhar said.

Police have registered a case against unidentified persons for abandoning the explosives and are examining whether the material had earlier been procured for construction, mining or land-development activity in the neighbourhood. Officials stressed that there is no confirmed evidence at present connecting the detonators to military stores or to the disappearance of weapons from the 20 Madras Regiment armoury.

The detonator recovery comes against the backdrop of a major multi-agency search operation triggered by the theft of a substantial quantity of weapons and ammunition from the 20th Battalion, The Madras Regiment, at Bollarum.

The theft was detected at around 7.50 a.m. on August 31, when Army personnel opened the unit’s kote and battalion magazine and found that the locks securing the premises and the weapon-storage boxes had allegedly been forcibly broken. The stores had last been physically accounted for at about 6 p.m. on August 30.

After the discovery, a Lieutenant Colonel of 20 Madras filed a complaint with Bollarum police, setting off a major investigation involving the Army, local police and Military Intelligence.

The missing inventory reportedly includes four AK-203 assault rifles, one INSAS rifle, several 9 mm pistols, a civilian-calibre pistol, weapon magazines, a night-vision device and a large quantity of ammunition. Searches have been underway in and around the military establishment to trace the stolen material.

The battalion’s main body, including its commanding officer, was reportedly at the Pokhran field-firing range in Rajasthan when the theft took place. Investigators are examining multiple aspects of the breach, including access to the armoury, the security arrangements around the store and the circumstances in which surveillance systems may have failed or been switched off.

Military Intelligence has joined the probe, and the Army has also ordered a court of inquiry to establish how service weapons could have disappeared from a secured military facility. Personnel and others who may have had access to the area have been questioned as investigators attempt to reconstruct the sequence of events.

The recovery of the 160 detonators has now led to two parallel investigations in the Bollarum area — one into commercial explosive material found on private land adjoining the Army firing-range boundary, and another into the theft of service weapons and ammunition from inside a military establishment.

Police cautioned against drawing a connection between the two incidents without evidence. As of Thursday, the search for the stolen weapons and ammunition was still underway, while investigators separately worked to establish the origin and ownership of the recovered detonators.