Patna: The Munger police on Sunday arrested a retired army jawan, Mohammad Niyazur Rehman, from Bengal's New Jalpaiguri over an illicit arms deal.

Earlier, the police had nabbed his younger brother Shamsher, a resident of Bardah village in Munger, for supplying AK-47 assault rifles to criminal gangs and Maoist outfits operating in Bihar.

Acting Munger superintendent of police Babu Ram said a team had gone to New Jalpaiguri based on a tip-off.

Niyazur was brought to Munger where senior police officers quizzed him.

The raiding team had seized three AK-47 rifles from the house of Shamsher's sister Rizwana Begam. Her husband Hasan is a retired serviceman and a close friend of Purusottam Lal Rajak, a resident of Rewa in Madhya Pradesh who was an armourer in the army and retired in 2008. Rajak, who was arrested from MP recently, had told the police that he had sold six AK-47 rifles to Imran and Shamsher.

The Munger SP said Imran spilled the beans. His interrogation led to the arrest of Rajak and his wife Chandrawati from their house in Jabalpur. During interrogation, the couple admitted that they had visited Munger 40-50 times by train during the past six years and supplied around 100 AK-47 rifles to their agents. "The arrested couple had made their house a centre of assembled illicit sophisticated weapons," Babu Ram said.

Each AK-47 was sold for Rs 4 lakh to 5 lakh in Munger.

The couple told the interrogators that Imran was their main agent,who used to receive the consignment and sell them in the market.

The SP said so far four persons were arrested and six AK-47 rifles with 34 magazines seized. Shamsher was in the illegal trade since the late 1990s. "The whole family is involved in the trade. But their name never surfaced earlier as they were living out of Munger," the SP said, adding that the family's connections with criminal gangs and Maoist outfits were being checked.

The Munger police have no records of criminal antecedents of Shamsher and his family members. Officials who were present during quizzing of Shamsher and Imran said they admitted to have sold around 70 AK-47 rifles. However, only six have been found.

"This is a matter of concern for the state police as such a huge consignment of sophisticated weapons were in the possession of the gangsters and extremists," said a senior IPS officer, who is monitoring the joint operation of the state and the Madhya Pradesh police. The personnel of the special task force of the police headquarters also played an important role in exposing the inter-state arms racket.

Sources in the police headquarters said the National Investigation Agency (NIA) may take over the investigation of the case soon. A source said the Jabalpur police have arrested one Suresh Thakur, manager of the ordnance factory. Rajak had lured Thakur to smuggle out parts of unused AK-47 rifles kept in the store.