To remove RDX from ‘malkhana’, Gurdaspur admn approaches cops

Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, October 11

The district administration has asked the Punjab Police to remove an unknown quantity of RDX explosives, lying in the government ‘malkhana’ (warehouse) for the past three decades.

The warehouse falls in the area of an under-construction Rs 46-crore five-storied District Administrative Complex (DAC). As much as 80 per cent of the work had been completed when the contractor, early this year, brought to the notice of officials that the old warehouse could not be demolished because the RDX was lying there. This development had officials tied in knots as they tried in vain to find a way out to remove the explosives — the potency of which is not known to anybody. 

After former Deputy Commissioner Abhinav Trikha was told about the presence of RDX in the warehouse early this year, first steps were taken to get rid of it.

Initially, the police were asked to do the job but it claimed that it did not have the necessary wherewithal. The Army was approached, but it refused saying, “it is the police which should devise ways and means to destroy the explosives.”

For the next few months things went into a limbo following which the DAC construction work came to an abrupt halt. In fact, questions have been raised over the planning and execution of the project which plans to bring all offices under one roof. Many claim that the RDX should have been taken out before the construction begun.

The only solace for officers having their offices near the pile was experts’ view that “RDX is stable in storage and will explode only if a detonator is used.”

Now, Deputy Commissioner Pardeep Sabharwal, who has approached the police, said he was optimistic that the explosives would be removed soon and the construction of the remaining 20 per cent of the project would be completed within next two months.

“It is a remnant of the times of terrorism, which plagued the district in the late seventies and eighties. I agree that its presence is acting as a hindrance in completing the building. I understand that the police would be sending its team within the next few days to remove it,” he said.