Three held with 11 illegal firearms, 51 live ammunition in Cuttack

CUTTACK:  Commissionerate police on Wednesday arrested three persons from Sankarpur locality in the city and seized 11 illegal firearms and 51 rounds of live ammunition from them. The accused Santosh Rout, Jyotiranjan Barik and Prasanta Rout were arrested basing on information provided by Tukuna Swain, a professional arms dealer and anti-social of Talcher who used to supply weapons to criminals across the State including the notorious Dhalsamant brothers. 

While 18 cases are pending against Tukuna at various police stations in Angul, Jagatsinghpur and Cuttack districts, five are registered against Santosh in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. Similarly, five cases are pending against Jyotiranjan and nine against Prashant in different police stations across Cuttack district. 

Commissioner of Police Soumendra Priyadarshi said massive amount of arms and ammunition were seized following  the arrest of Dhalsamant brothers. While investigation was in progress, a special team was formed under DCP, Cuttack to arrest Tukuna who used to supply the weapons and ammunition to the criminals. Tukuna was arrested by the Special Task Force of Crime Branch on May 30 and forwarded to court of SDJM, Talcher. 

“We brought him in remand for interrogation in two phases-first for three days and then for five days from June 9 to 16. During sustained interrogation by our special team, Tukuna revealed he had concealed eight arms in his house,” he said. 

Tukuna also gave away details of the three accused arrested on the day. A senior police officer of special squad said the Commissionerate police has found the source of illegal arms and ammunition to be at Munger district in Bihar.