Kolkata, July 19 (IANS) The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the West Bengal Police, on Sunday, arrested a woman with a huge cache of illegal firearms and ammunition at Ahsoknagar in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal.
The woman has been identified as Puja Biswas, a resident of ward number 12 under Habra Municipality in the same district.
Among the weapons recovered from her are six firearms, which include four 7 mm and two 9 mm pistols, 12 magazines, and 200 rounds of ammunition. Besides, cash worth Rs 12,000 and two mobile phones were also seized.
She will be presented at a district court later in the day, and the public prosecutor will seek her police custody.
The CID sleuths suspected that Biswas was a part of a major arms smuggling racket, probably with a base at Munger in Bihar. They are currently interrogating her to get information on her associates in the racket, said a state police officer.
Acting on a tip-off, a joint team of the CID sleuths and the cops from Ashoknagar Police Station stopped a vehicle in which the woman was travelling. The sleuths noted that she was carrying a bag.
After the bag was frisked, the raiding sleuths recovered the cache of illegal firearms, ammunition, cash and mobile phone. The joint operation was conducted on Naihati Ashoknagar Road at intersection number 8. A train ticket for Jamalpur in Bihar was also recovered from her possession, creating doubts about her connections with the arms rackets based out of Munger in Bihar, the state police official informed.
Initial investigation has revealed that the woman entered the state by train from Bihar. She had got off at Naihati, and from there she was going to Habra. However, she was arrested by the CID before that.
The investigating officers strongly suspect that the firearms were brought from Bihar to West Bengal for sale in the local underworld market. “The sleuths are interrogating her to know about the prospective buyers for the arms and ammunition consignments that she was carrying along with her,” the state police officer said.
–IANS
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