Illegal arms factory unearthed near Kolkata, huge ammunition seized

According to reports, acting on a tip off, the special operations group of South 24 Parganas district police conducted raid in a suspected house at Kankhuli area under Rabindra Nagar Police Station limits onTuesday.

Huge ammunition and explosive materials were seized from the house and five persons were booked in connection with the case.

"Basing on specific source information, we raided a house at Maheshtala Municipality's Ward-8 area under Rabindra Nagar PS limits and recovered as many as 101 firearms, including 95 single-shoter pistols, two 9-mm pistols and 4 single barrel long arms (pipe-guns), 54 round cartridges, 9 kg explosives and 7 mobile phones," South 24 Parganas SP Sunil Choudhary told IBNS.

"We arrested the owner of the firearms factory- Aftab Hussain, who hails from Bhagalpur in Bihar, Nijam Purkayat, who is from of Basanti in the same district, and three residents of Bihar's Munger district- Md. Selim, Md. Aslam and Md. Ahtesan," Choudhary added.

According to sources, police earlier nabbed firearms dealer Md. Selim and after interrogating him, came to know about the factory and other arms makers.

"They used to traffic these firearms to several places in South 24 Parganas, Kolkata and West Bengal-Bangladesh border areas," SP further said.

However, they have been charged under several sections of Arms Act, including 25 (1AA) and 35, and sections 4 and 5 of Explosive Substances (ES) Act, officials said.

The five accused were produced in a Kolkata court on Wednesday and sent to police custody.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)

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