Patna senior superintendent of police Alok Kumar (right) addresses the reporters at his office on Monday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, July 18: Police today arrested three persons, all alleged members of CPI(ML) and recovered three country-made rifles and six .303 lives cartridges from their possession.

Based on a tip-off, Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Alok Kumar formed a police team, under Patna superintendent of police (rural) Vivek Kumar, which raided the house of one Koeli Devi, who holds the position of panch (ward member) of the ward number 1 of Lakhanpura panchayat under Punpun police station of rural Patna, and recovered the weapons apart from arresting the men.

Those arrested were identified as Surendra Ram, Krishna Manjhi and Koeli Devi, the SSP said.

“The police today received the information that a group of 10 to 12 men belonging to CPI(ML) under the leadership of Parshuram Rai, a CPI(ML) leader, had assembled in Koeli’s house with weapons to commit a crime. The team comprised deputy superintendent of police (Masauri), station house officer of Punpun police station apart from other policemen. The team raided the house of Koeli Devi in Sripalpur village of Punpun and arrested the three men along with arms and ammunition,” the SSP said.

During interrogation, the men said that two persons, identified as Balram Gupta and Virender Singh, had bought a piece of land from one Dharmendra Dayal in Sripalpur village.

“The piece of land was being looked after and irrigated by one Bhagwan Singh, a resident of Sripalpur. Singh did not want the duo to take physical possession of the land. But the two men had already earmarked the land by constructing a boundary wall and the remaining part of the land was also to be given a boundary wall today. Singh took help of the arrested persons and Koeli to break the constructed boundary wall and disallow any type of further construction activity on the land,” the SSP said.

The police claimed that the timely arrest of the men helped avert a major criminal incident.

“If the police did not act on time, there would have been a lot of bloodshed. The police, at present, are trying to arrest the remaining men as well as the main players. Raids are being conducted and the cops will arrest them soon,” the SSP added.