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Government introduces bill amending explosives act

Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani introduced in the Lok Sabha today a bill to amend the Explosive Substances Act, which seeks to provide for rigorous life imprisonment for unauthorised possession of special category explosive substances like RDX, PETN and HMX.

The Explosive Substances (amendment) Bill, 1998, proposes to put more lethal explosives and other similar explosives or a combination of them and remote control devices for causing explosion under ''special category explosive substances'' and to provide for enhancement in maximum punishment.

In the Explosive Substances Act, which provides for punishment to any person who causes an explosion likely to endanger life or property, there is no distinction between offences involving use of conventional explosives as compared with offences committed with more lethal explosives like RDX, PETN, HMX and LTPE.

There is also a need that an explosion caused by the use of remote control devices should attract more severe punishment.

In the recent past there have been incidents of bomb blasts on a very large scale in some parts of the country particularly in Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and the north-east, causing huge loss to life and property.

UNI

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