The Khariar police on Tuesday busted an arms smuggling racket by arresting and court forwarding four persons involved in the illegal work.The racket was active in Nuapada, Balangir and Kalahandi districts for over a year. The arrested included a Zila Parishad (ZP) Member of Nuapada.
The police seized three handmade pistols from the the arrested persons, who are identified as Rajdeb Sing of Bhawanipatna Mahabir pada, Jagdish Soni of Deobhog (Chhatishgarh), Prabhudash Nag alias Munku of Mission Hospital pada of Khariar and ZP Member Khirasindhu Tandi of Jharbandh village in Sinapali block.
“We had been tracking the racket since last few months and finally caught them at Khariar with the arms” said Khariar SDPO Santanu Kumar Dash at a Press meet on Wednesday.
The SDPO said leader of the gang Rajdeb, who originally belongs to Bihar, was bringing arms from Munger of Bihar and supplying those to different people in Balangir, Nuapada and Kalahandi districts through Munku.
“I have supplied 12 pistols in last one and a half years” confessed Rajdeb before Media. “I was selling one pistol for `18,000 and getting a profit of `2 to 3 thousands” he added.
The SDPO further revealed that two pistols seized earlier at Nuapada from the criminals involved in fake currency racket and a pistol seized from one laibana Bhoi of Sinapali were supplied by this racket.
“We have seized half of the illegal arms supplied by this racket and hope to trace the rest half very soon,” the SDPO said, adding that the arms used by the dacoits arrested in October 2013 dacoity case in Nuapada were also supplied by this racket.