Ranchi police on Friday unearthed a mini gun factory in the State Capital and arrested three men allegedly involved in running an illegal racket of arms manufacture and supply while they were delivering a consignment at a stone’s throw from Prabhat Tara Ground from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed his first election rally in Jharkhand in 2014.
Prabhat Tara Ground was the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) favourite venue for election rallies during the 2014 General Elections. Even after the BJP government came to power at the centre, the party’s National President Amit Shah addressed party workers from the ground.
Ranchi Senior Superintendent of Police Anish Gupta told the media on Friday that raids were conducted on the basis of tip offs provided by intelligence sources on Thursday and the trio was arrested during the process. The police recovered a bag from the trio which contained three country-made pistols and eight live cartridges.
During interrogation, the arrested men shared information with the police that led to further recovery offive misfired cartridges, one half-made pistol, seven magazines of pistols, 13 barrels of country-made pistols, lathe machines and more items from one of the accused, Vijay Kumar Sharma’s residence.
The other two arrested men have identified themselves as Manoj Kumar Mandal and Muhammad Sakid, police said.
“Reacting to tip offs on Thursday, we formed a team including Tupudana OP in-charge and other policemen to conduct raids,” Gupta said.
The team kept an eye on commoners near Prabhat Tara Ground at Dhurwa. During the vigilance, the team found activities of the three arrested men suspicious and arrested them.
One of the three handed over a bag to the other two near Prabhat Tara Ground on Friday.
They tried to flee after the police intervened. However, the cops caught hold of them and recovered arms and ammunitions from the bag.
Police sources said that the nexus was possibly planning an attack in or around Ranchi.
The catch comes as a breakthrough for the law enforcement agency since the 17th General Elections have already been announced and the Model Code of Conduct is in force.