Hyderabad: The police today unearthed and defused two powerful landmines allegedly planted by Maoists below a road in Telangana’s Bhupalpally district.

During road-checking, a police team spotted a wire on the roadside between Abbaigudem and Aluvaka villages at around 4.30 am, Additional Superintendent of Police (Eturnagaram) Rahul Hegde told a news agency over phone.

Suspecting it to be a landmine, the police personnel immediately alerted the bomb disposal squad, which rushed to the spot, dug up the road and found two aluminium buckets filled with around 25 kgs of explosives along with detonators at a depth of nearly 1.5 metres, he said.

The bomb disposal squad later defused the landmines, he said.

“They were powerful landmines which could have blown up a bus, if detonated,” the official said.

Based on preliminary investigation, Hegde, who visited the spot, said the landmines were suspected to have been planted by Maoists around one year ago to target the police and VIP movement on the route.

As of now a case under relevant sections of the Explosives Act was registered, he said, adding that they were mulling to also file a case under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.