HYDERABAD, June 17: A team of the Crime Investigation Cell of the Hyderabad police in a raid on Monday seized at least 800 kgs of chemicals that could be used for making explosives and crackers. A suspect, Mohsin, has also been arrested.

The chemicals included sodium nitrate, carbon and sulphur. They were kept in 34 gunny bags, each weighing between 25 and 35 kgs.

A police source said that two members of the Crime Investigation Cell, Muneer Abbasi and Sikandar Bhatti, picked up Mohsin from Latifabad Unit No12, near the Khuda Hafiz Board, on Sunday night for his alleged involvement in using explosives.

He was alleged to have been selling materials and other chemicals, meant for bomb blasts, to different people including activists of a political party.

A reliable police source said that the Crime Investigation Cell came to know that an activist of the PPP-SB had been involved in such activities and he had been buying these chemicals from Mohsin.

The Crime Investigation Cell believed that the PPP-SB activist was behind recent incidents of bomb blasts in Hyderabad.

The source said that Sher Khan, the late father of Mohsin, had possessed a license for selling these chemicals to the coal mines, which used it for blasting mines. However, after he died in the late 90s, his license was illegally used by his son.

Mohsin also used to sell these items to manufacturers of fireworks.

The Crime Investigation Cell picked up Mohsin from his house for interrogation. The latter disclosed that he bought these chemicals from a market, located behind the Muslim Commercial Bank, Tower Market branch.

The Crime Investigation Cell conducted a raid in the bazaar from where it picked up godown owners, who belonged to the Cheepa community. They were subsequently interrogated.

The source said that they told the members of the Crime Investigation Cell that they did not deal in these chemicals as they were associated with the business of textile printing, but they bought the chemicals after Mohsin, who was a regular customer, persuaded them.

The union office bearers of the market approached the Crime Investigation Cell.

The source further confided that another person was also involved in purchasing and selling such chemicals and his consignment of 25,000 kgs was to arrive from Karachi on Wednesday.

No case has so far been registered by the police.