The cartridges, including nearly 2000 rounds of 410 Muscket and 2000 rounds of 9 mm bore, were recovered after the Chandrapur police launched a search operation at the Ranala lake on a tip-off, police said. "The ammunition appears to be old, which naxalite dalams (groups) could have dumped in the lake," Chandrapur SP Ravindra Kadam told PTI, adding that the search operation was continuing with the help of fishermen. Kadam said he suspected that there could be an ammunition depot of naxalites in the proximity of the lake, and the ultras dumped the ammunition in the lake while shifting the den or fearing a police crackdown. Kadam said nearly 800 cartridges of similar calibre were seized from a scrap merchant in late 2004 and it was being ascertained if those and the ones seized today belong to the same manufactured lot.
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