The special task force (STF) of Bengal police on Friday recovered around 300 quintals of ammonium nitrate, a chemical which is used as an indigenous ingredient to make explosives, from a storehouse in a remote Birbhum village in Nalhati. Senior police officers said the Union government in early 2011 restricted the use of ammonium nitrate in any fertilisers following rampant use of this chemical to make crude bombs by terrorists and other extremist groups. STF officials, however, could not arrest the owner of the storehouse in Nalhati village as he managed to flee during the early Friday morning raid