Ramgarh, July 8: Police on Wednesday busted an illegal mini-arms manufacturing unit operating from a house in Jharkhand’s Ramgarh district and arrested a couple allegedly involved in manufacturing and supplying illegal firearms to criminals, officials said.
The illegal factory was unearthed during a joint raid by Ramgarh and Hazaribagh police at AK Colliery (Datto) under the Bhurkunda outpost following specific intelligence inputs, they said.
The accused, identified as Dinesh Vishwakarma (45) and his wife Nutan Devi (38), originally hail from Warsaliganj in Bihar’s Nawada district and had been residing in the area for nearly a decade. They have been booked under Sections 25(1-B)(A), 25(1A), 26 and 35 of the Arms Act and remanded to judicial custody.
“Acting on specific information about illegal arms manufacturing and smuggling, a joint team of Ramgarh and Hazaribagh police conducted the raid and uncovered a mini-arms manufacturing factory,” Ramgarh Superintendent of Police Mukesh Kumar Lunayat told reporters.
During the search, police recovered three semi-finished 7.65 mm pistols, nine magazines, firing pins, triggers, springs, butt covers, body lock pins, cock pins and other firearm components. Machinery and tools, including a drill machine, gas cutter, welding machine, furnace, tool box, railway track pieces, iron sheets, hammers, wrenches and pliers, besides two mobile phones and an Activa scooter, were also seized.
Preliminary investigation suggests the couple had been manufacturing illegal firearms and supplying them to criminals for a considerable period, police said.
A Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by the Patratu Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) has been constituted to investigate the case. The team is probing the source of raw materials, buyers, supply chain and the involvement of other members of the network, besides examining possible links with inter-district and interstate arms smuggling syndicates.
Police said forensic examination of the seized weapons and equipment would be carried out to gather further evidence and identify other members of the racket.
The operation is expected to help uncover a larger organised illegal arms manufacturing and smuggling network, officials added.
