The police has registered a case against former chief of Bihar BJP Gopal Narayan Singh for illegal mining in the forest areas of Rohtas district. Singh has been charged with illegitimate quarrying and under various sections of the Explosives Act as the police recovered a large quantity of explosives and detonators from his office during the raid in the Muffasil area of Sasaram on Sunday. Rohtas SP Manu Maharaj was leading the raid party against illegal mines. The henchmen of people involved in illegal quarrying fired upon the SP’s vehicle to block movement of the police. Later, they tried to crush his vehicle with the help of a JCB machine. But the police succeeded in nabbing 40 persons from the spot. It also seized 70 tractors, six pokland machines, three compressors and two JCBs being used in excavation. Altogether 80 bags of ammonium nitrate (each weighing 50 kg), a highly explosive substance, and over 50,000 detonators and other materials used by the illegal miners were also recovered from the spot. The Rohtas SP said the police would pursue legal proceedings, including arrest of the accused persons after obtaining a warrant of arrest against them from the court. An FIR was registered against Gopal Narayan Singh under the same charge (illegal quarrying) in November 2011 when the district administration had raided the forest areas of Sasaram.