Seven gunny bags full of arms and ammunition were lying in a hotel room in Sealdah. The cache was waiting for “receivers”, who would ferry it across to Mumbai.

But the army intelligence received a tip-off and a joint raid with police resulted in the arrest of four men. The bags were seized.

The Sealdah raid was one of the several crackdowns in the recent past that led to the seizure of huge quantities of arms and cartridges. The incidents also point to the fact that the city has become a transit point for arms smugglers whose reach spreads across the country and beyond.

“We netted another group of arms dealers from the Burrabazar-Posta area. Two men were arrested,” said Gyanwant Singh, the deputy commissioner (headquarters).

On Thursday, sleuths caught a youth in the New Market area while he was roaming around with a loaded pistol in his trouser pocket. He told the police that he got the firearm from a man in Burrabazar. “It proves that a number of groups are operating from the city,” said an officer.

Intelligence reports reveal that there are more than 100 illegal arms-manufacturing units in Bihar. “They send consignments to Calcutta, where they are stored in Burrabazar, Muchipara, Baranagar, Ekbalpore, Watgunge, Bally and Shibpur, before being taken to other states,” said another officer. Sleuths are also trying to bust a racket that supplies arms to Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.