West Bengal: Illegal arms factory busted near Purulia, six arrested
Kumar said the arms factory owner hailed from Dhanbad and had rented the house in 2011, where he had put up a lethe machine as a front. The pistols and its parts were made inside the rooms and hid in trenches after digging the soil in the adjacent graveyard.
An illegal arms factory was busted at Raghunathpur, 30 km from here and six persons were arrested in connection with it on Saturday by Purulia police during a night-long operation since midnight.
Purulia SP Rupesh Kumar said acting on a tip off he led the raid last night at the rented house of a man identified as the master-mind of an illegal arms manufacturing and supplying gang.
The raid continued till early morning and police seized six 9mm pistols, besides 303 and 3.2 pistols and machinery to make them.
Kumar said the arms factory owner hailed from Dhanbad and had rented the house in 2011, where he had put up a lethe machine as a front. The pistols and its parts were made inside the rooms and hid in trenches after digging the soil in the adjacent graveyard.
The pistols were supplied to gangs across the country, he said.
The mastermind, identified as Mohammad Ansari, however,managed to flee before the raid.
During the day six persons who were employed in the illegal factory were arrested from Dhanbad, which is about 100 km away in Jharkhand and from the Bengal-Jharkhand border areas, Kumar said.
Three of them were remanded to police custody and the rest three were sent to jail custody by a local court, where they were produced.
The house was sealed, Kumar added.