Bhubaneswar, May 30 (PTI) Security personnel on Friday recovered a substantial amount of the explosives recently looted by Maoists in Odisha's Sundergarh district following a fierce gun-battle with the red rebels, police said.

Around 200 packets of explosives, mostly gelatin sticks, were looted by Maoists at gun-point in K Balang police station area three days ago while those were being transported to a stone quarry for blasting rocks.

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The police had launched a search operation to locate the looted items.

The joint efforts of nine teams of jawans belonging to Odisha Police's SOG and CRPF finally located the explosive materials in a dense forest in Jharkhand, around three km from the Odisha border.

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"We have recovered a substantial amount of the explosive materials looted from K Balang area," Rourkela Superintendent of Police Nitesh Wadhwani told PTI over the phone, adding that some other incriminating materials were also seized.

The SP said there was no injury to any member of the search teams.

Sources said that the explosives were found at Tirilposh, located close to Saranda forest, on the Odisha-Jharkhand inter-state boundary.

The Odisha Police had earlier confirmed that Maoists from Jharkhand were involved in looting the explosives from a truck on Tuesday.

According to the police, around 30 armed Maoists from Jharkhand hijacked the gelatin sticks-laden truck by holding the driver of the vehicle at gunpoint.

A day after the looting, Odisha DGP Y B Khurania and other senior police officers visited the spot and an NIA team started investigating the matter.

Security forces from Odisha and Jharkhand, along with the CRPF personnel, immediately launched a massive search operation to retrieve the stolen explosives.

Odisha Police have also constituted an SIT (Special Investigation Team) to probe into the incident.

Meanwhile, police sources said that the gunfight was underway between security personnel and red rebels in the dense forest along the Odisha-Jharkhand inter-state boundary.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)