City police arrested eight members of a criminal gang which was hatching a plot to kill a Kadma resident late on Thursday night.The police also seized two semi-automatic pistols and as many country-made pistols beside 57 rounds cartridges of different calibre.
According to information all the eight were arrested while they were planning for committing the murder by meeting at a vacant residential quarter in Farm Area under Kadma police station area.
Those arrested were identified as Bhajan Pramanik, Prakash Singh, Vikas Pandey, Gaurav Mishra, Masuk Manish, Saurabh Dalai, Raman Jha, Prakash Chalak, all between age-group of 20 to 25 years.
Senior SP, Anoop Birthray at a press conference here on Friday said that the criminal gang led by Masuk had the plan to murder Shankar Rao (45) who is a civil contractor and resident of Kadma.
"We got a tip off that a gang of criminals were busy hatching plan at a vacant residential quarter on road No 11 in Farm Area, immediately we set up a high-level police team led by city SP, Prabhat Kumar. The police team, which was also comprised of deputy superintendent of police (headquarters-II) and DSP (composite control room) Kailash Karmali and Sudhir Kumar respectively raided the place and succeeded to nab eight of the criminals including the gang leader Masuk," said Birthray.
The senior SP stated that during interrogation they came to know that those arrested had the plan to commit more murders in the city."As per our investigation the gang came into being just five months ago wanted to kill Rao because Masuk had old enmity with him," said the senior police officer while addressing to the newsmen.
Birthray said they have also come to know that this gang had in the past opened fire at a youth Rajkumar Das at Kadma in February and also on another youth Baldev Singh at Sakchi in March.