Youth seen with gun in Howrah rally held in Bihar

KOLKATA/PATNA: Police have arrested 19-year-old Sumit Shaw, who was seen in a video brandishing a weapon and dancing during a Ram Navami procession in Howrah last Thursday.
The detective department of Howrah Police said he was arrested from Bihar's Munger in a late-night raid with the help of local cops. The accused is being brought to Howrah on Wednesday on transit remand and will be handed over to CID after court production. According to cops, Shaw is a resident of Shambhu Halder Lane in Salkia under Malipanchghora PS.
"He dropped out of studies during pandemic. Presently, he was driving a mini-truck. He was fleeing towards Amritsar via Delhi and Ambala. We sent teams to Delhi station, but he began retracing his steps back to Bihar. Finally, we tracked him to Munger where he was hiding," said a source.
During interrogation, the accused claimed he had attended the rally with a weapon. "He was in possession of the weapon for some time now. His criminal antecedents are being checked. His claims on how he acquired the firearm is also important," said a source.
Howrah Police commissioner, Praveen Tripathi , said "We arrested him from Munger." Munger SP Jagunatharaddi Jalaraddi said a seven-member team led by senior Bengal officers apprehended Shaw with help of Kasim Bazaar cops. DSP Sadar (Munger) Rajesh Kumar said, "He was living at the house of his friend after he was seen holding a firearm at the procession."
Trinamool minister Shashi Panja said, "These videos were flagged by our national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee. BJP said these were fake. But, Shaw, who was seen carrying a pistol in the video, was arrested from Munger. Shaw admitted that he was in the BJP procession in question carrying a pistol and that he's a BJP worker."
On Monday, Bengal BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar and a few other leaders had claimed that the video shared by Banerjee was of "some other place" and not Bengal.