Kolkata Police arrest 5 men from Uttar Pradesh with illegal firearms

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A Kolkata Police Special Task Force (STF) on Monday (January 27, 2025) evening nabbed five men from Uttar Pradesh with illegal firearms from the Baithakkhana area in Sealdah, Kolkata. This was the second seizure of illegal arms from the same locality in the past two months.

The Kolkata Police feared that the arrested men were “planning to commit a crime in the city”. As the news spread, the arrest triggered panic among locals. A case was registered at the STF Police Station, and the suspects, Rahul Yadav, Shivshankar Yadav, Aditya Maurya, Devank Gupta, and Rukesh Sahani, were produced at the Bankshall Court in Kolkata on Tuesday, January 27, 2025.

Speaking about the arrests, Kolkata Commissioner of Police Manoj Kumar Verma said, “Intelligence agency tasks are not a one-day process. We had reports, had surveillance on the suspects, and when the information matured, we arrested them.”

Responding to a question about whether criminals from outside the State were operating in West Bengal and why their movement could not be restricted, Mr. Verma said that inter-State movement was massive in all State but who among them were criminals was a matter of intelligence agencies and they were constantly working on it.

Rupesh Kumar, Joint Commissioner of Police of Crime, said that the suspects were from various parts of Uttar Pradesh and had no valid documents for the firearms. “We have mailed the local police from U.P. and requested further details on previous case records and profiles of the suspects. What crimes they had planned to commit is not clear yet,” he added.

As per the preliminary investigation, the suspects had been in the city for the past two days and were put up in a local lodge.

Police seized two firearms — a 7mm semi-automatic and another single shot, and 15 rounds of live ammunition.

This comes as a significant development as multiple shootouts in the State have been linked to illegal arms. In one such incident, Trinamool Congress councillor Sushanta Ghosh was shot at in Kolkata and another councillor Dulal Sarkar was killed in Malda district. Both attacks involved use of out-of-State arms.

Multiple arrests

On November 9, 2024, the STF busted a similar illegal arms racket in Baithakkhana and arrested one suspect. Five firearms, including three single-shot firearms and two 7 mm semi-automated pistols, were seized. Around 90 rounds of cartridges, 50 rounds of 8 mm live cartridges and 40 rounds of 7.65mm live cartridges were recovered. The arms were being smuggled from Bihar’s Munger area.

On November 13 last year, the STF along with several other agencies of adjoining States busted an illegal firearms unit in Munger. It was the 14th such operation jointly conducted by the Kolkata Police STF in Bihar and Jharkhand in the past three years.

According to the STF officials, 58 people had been arrested or detained from Bihar and Jharkhand in joint raids between 2022 and 2024 over their alleged links with arms-making units.