4 held for running illegal arms factory in Tiljala

In a major breakthrough, the police arrested four persons on Friday on charges of running an illegal arms manufacturing factory at Tiljala.

A huge cache of firearms, ammunition and machineries was seized from the factory housed in the ground floor of the four-storeyed building.

Police said that all the four arrested persons — Sourav Kumar (19), Md Sonu (22), Md Raju (22) and Md Sarfaraz Alam (24) — were residents of Munger. They had rented the ground floor of the building at Tiljala to run the factory and they used to stay in a room in the top floor of the same building.

Acting on a tip-off, the police had arrested two more residents of Munger — Afroz Ahmed and Imtiaz Ahmed — from West Port Police Station area on July 24. The duo was carrying illegal firearms. Sources said that the police had come to know about the four others and conducted a raid in the illegal firearms manufacturing factory on Chandranath Roy Road on Friday morning.

A police officer said that the accused had been carrying out the business of illegal firearms in the guise of an iron anodising factory.

Local people had not suspected anything as they thought that the machines were

being used to make iron dices and parts of various machineries.

They hardly used to mix up with the people in the locality. The police are trying to find whether the landlord was also aware of the illegal activities that had been taking place in the factory. The accused used to give Rs 8,000 to the landlord as rent every month.

During the raid, the police seized eight 7.65 mm semi-automatic improvised pistols, 16 magazines, 50 7.65 mm

ammunition, three lathe machines, barrel drilling machine, five clamp machines and two metal polishing machines and other tools required to make firearms.

The police came to know that the accused used to sell each of the pistols at anything between Rs 35,000 to Rs 50,000.

The investigating officers are interrogating the accused and they are trying to know that how far they have managed to spread their tentacles. A police officer said that they are confirm about the connection of the accused with the illegal firearm dealers in Munger.

Police came to know that the task of the duo, who were arrested on July 24, was to bring workers experts in making firearms from Munger to work in the Tiljala factory.