On the other hand, senior police officers have blamed existence of a large number of unlicensed mining operations for proliferation of such cases.

On Tuesday, Rural SOG police sub-inspector, B P Rozia, along with Rangpur police sub-inspector, arrested labourer Ishaq Shaikh and store manager Arvind Rathwa with 35 kg of ammonia nitrate, 87 detonators and 300 meter long safety fuse.

"On receiving the tip-off, we raided the quarry at Kanawat village with the help of the Rangpur police officials and seized the explosives and arrested the accused," said police.

On the other hand, the quarry owner, Mustafa Ishaq Vohra, is absconding and it could not be ascertained whether the quarry owned by Vohra had a license or not.

"We are interrogating the accused. Since the owner is absconding, we are not able to verify whether he had the license to carry out the operations at the quarry," said Rozia.

Recently, the Bharuch police had seized 400 kg of ammonia nitrate from a shed. Senior police officers, however, believe the operations are being carried out in the district as a routine exercise.