Twelve 12 AK-47 rifles were recovered on Thursday night from a well in a village in Munger district of Bihar. Two weeks ago, eight AK-47 rifles were seized from the same district.
Munger has become a hub of manufacturing units and smuggling den of illegal country-made weapons.
Acting on a tip-off, a team led by Additional SP (Operations) Rana Navin raided and recovered the weapons from a well at Bahiyar village located between Bardah and Taufir villages of the district. Bardah has been the centre of illegal gun manufacturing units and a weapon smuggler’s den. Police stated that all the rifles were smuggled from the Central Ordnance Depot (COD) in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, and are in good condition.
“Earlier, we had arrested Tanvir Alam from Hazaribagh district in Jharkhand. It was on his input that a raid was conducted last night at village Bahiyar and 12 AK-47 rifles were recovered from a well,” Munger Superintendent of Police (SP) Babu Ram told local journalists. “With this, the number of AK-47 series of rifles seized in Munger has gone up to 20,” he added.
The Munger police have arrested five persons, including a woman, in connection with the recovery of the cache of AK-47 rifles.
“All of them were smuggled from the COD in Jabalpur,” said the police. “The Madhya Pradesh police is keeping track of those who had smuggled the rifles from COD since 2012. We’re focusing on the receivers and purchasers of those rifles,” said the SP. While the Jabalpur police have arrested one storekeeper of COD Suresh Thakur, a retired army armourer Purushottan Rajak and two others in this case, the Munger police have arrested five persons, including a woman in connection with the recovery of huge cache of sophisticated AK-47 rifles, he said.
A cottage industry
Bradah, located on the banks of the Ganga, for long, has been the centre of illegal arms manufacturing units and den of smugglers. “Manufacturing illegal weapons has been like a cottage industry in this village. One can get a re-make of any sophisticated weapon here, sometimes better than the original,” a local journalist Awadhesh Kumar Singh told The Hindu. However, of late, the villagers have shifted their manufacturing base either to Malda district in West Bengal and bordering areas of Jharkhand due to mounting police pressure and easy availability of the materials. But, “they still assemble the parts here and sell them off to couriers easily as Munger is connected with mainline railway network,” Mr. Singh added. “Made in Munger illegal guns have made their presence felt in murders in almost every part of the country,” said a retired police official.