India, May 31 -- Three days after suspected Maoists looted around 1.5 tonnes of gelatin sticks from a truck near the Odisha-Jharkhand border, security forces have recovered a portion of the stolen explosives during a joint combing operation in the dense Saranda forests, police officers said on Friday.

"On Friday afternoon, the teams found some of the looted explosives 3 km inside the Jharkhand border inside Saranda forest. We have not assessed the exact amount so far as operations are still going on. By Saturday evening, we would know the exact amount that we could recover," a senior official of Rourkela police said.

On Tuesday, eight armed persons had hijacked a truck laden with gelatin stocks near a forested stone quarry at Banko, wit...