Police recover firearm, ammunition from vacant land
Kolkata: The Kolkata Police on Saturday night recovered a firearm and several rounds of ammunition from a vacant land in connection with the attempted attack on Kasba councillor Sushanta Ghosh.
According to police, a man identified as Lakshman Kumar Sharma alias Chotu, who was allegedly riding the scooter which carried a shooter during the November 15 attempt on Ghosh, was arrested from Vaishali in Bihar on December 3. Sharma had fled from the scene after the attempt was foiled and dumped the two-wheeler at the Bondel Gate area. Ghosh was targeted on November 15 evening when he was sitting with a few other people outside of his residence. Two persons riding on a scooter arrived there and the youth, sitting on the pillion, got down and tried to shoot the councillor from point-blank range but the firearm malfunctioned. He brought out another firearm which also did not work. The youth was caught while the one driving the scooter managed to flee.
Police have arrested several people including a taxi driver in connection with the case. Also, cops on November 19 seized the scooter from the Bondel Gate area.
Police while probing the case came to know that a former inmate of Beur Jail in Bihar had played the role of the middleman between one of the arrested persons identified as Afroz Khan alias Gulzar and the notorious Bihar-based Pappu gang. While checking the CCTV footage, police found that the scooter rider was walking towards Ballygunge Railway Station after abandoning the scooter. He is being brought to the city on transit remand for further interrogation.
Earlier, police claimed that the unknown man who played the middleman’s role had come to the city about a month before the attack for recce. It was also learnt that Gulzar had given the shooters new SIM cards so that their original phones could not be tracked. Also, they used to communicate in code languages and fake names.
Police, while gathering information about the Bihar-based gang, came to know that the gang members used to save the mobile numbers of their associates using women’s names.
They used to adopt unique communication styles so that their conversation looked personal. Police are yet to identify and trace the middleman who had played a major role in the attempted attack.
