Ranaghat, Feb. 18: Police have arrested two youths with three country-made revolvers and 15 rounds of live ammunition when they were trying to flee ignoring an ‘anti-crime’ naka checking by police on the Ranaghat-Dhantala road in Nadia during the early hours of Saturday morning.
A team from Dhantala police station chased the duo – Baban Das, 26, and Dhananjoy Sarkar, 29 for a few kilometers as they were trying to escape on a scooter and nabbed them along with the arms and ammunition.
Police sources said that the two accused youths – Baban, a resident of Belgharia in North 24 Parganas, and Dhananjoy, a resident of Panchberia of Nadia, who is part of a suspected arms supply chain, were heading to hand over the consignment to a racket member near Bangladesh border.
The sleuths suspect that the arms are being gathered by musclemen having proximity to political parties to intimidate their rivals ahead of the ensuing gram panchayat elections.
The duo was produced before the additional chief judicial magistrate’s court in Ranaghat, which ordered five days of police custody.
Speaking to the media persons in Santipur, Superintendent of Police, Ranaghat police District K. Kannan said, “Two youths riding a scooter (Yamaha ZR) suspiciously tried to flee the naka point when on duty policemen asked them to stop for checking near the Nimtala More during the late hours of Friday night. They sped away fast riding the two-wheeler prompting our officers to chase them…The duo was caught eventually and during frisking, we found three improvised firearms and 15 rounds of live ammunition from their possession”.
“We are trying to know how they managed to get the arms…and about the persons involved behind the suspected supply chain of which they are the part….” the SP said.