KOLKATA: In a case of role reversal, illegally-made firearms made in Kolkata were recovered from Bihar’s arms hub Munger on Monday evening.
The recovery of frames of 847mm semi-automatic pistols and arrest of four persons has sent Bihar and West Bengal police into a tizzy after interrogation revealed that the weapons were brought from
suburbs of Kolkata.
What has concerned the Bihar police team is that the weapons were recovered from a passenger bus in which the pistols were concealed in sacks of vegetables bought from West Bengal.
Two accused Mohammad Irfan and Mohammad Imtiaz are residents of Hazratganj whereas two more accused Mohammad Nasim and Mukhtar are residents of Jamalpur in Bihar.
The accused have revealed that the Kolkata-made pistol frames would be completely assembled with spring and trigger and sold to the huge market of the weapons throughout the Gangetic plains.
A weapons factory was traced in Bagnan in Howrah district in 2014 whereas another weapons factory was found in Rabindra Nagar area of Behala in Kolkata in 2016 and three weapons factories were found in Tiljala area of Kolkata in 2017.
A senior West Bengal Crime Investigation Department official expressed concern over intra-state assembly of illegal weapons. “Interrogation of the accused nabbed in the earlier arms factory busts revealed that it was much safer for them to produce weapons locally in West Bengal with gun-makers from Munger than
sneaking in the weapons from Bihar,” he said.
“However, this nexus between the gun-makers of the two states is surely a worrying trend for not only West Bengal but also Bihar firstly because the sale of the weapons to Maoists in Jharkhand, political cadres in West Bengal and Bangladeshi sea-pirates in Sundarbans area would be easier if they have a strong presence in Kolkata and also because accessibility of port from Kolkata would mean that these gun-makers could be a serious national security threat in the future,” he added.