Patna: An FIR has been lodged against former social welfare minister Kumari Manju Verma and her husband, former lawmaker Chandeshwar Verma, under the Arms Act following seizure of 50 live cartridges of different bores during a search at their ancestral house in Begusarai district on August 17.

The fresh case was registered on Saturday on the statement of a deputy superintendent of police-rank officer of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) before the Cheria Bariyarpur police station in Begusarai district.

The CBI sleuths raided the house of Chandeshwar, a former MLC, at Arjun Tola under Sripur panchayat in Begusarai in connection with the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual abuse case. Besides documents, the CBI officials recovered ammunition of different bores during the six-and-a-half-hour-long search.

Begusarai superintendent of police (SP) Aditya Kumar said some of the cartridges were of self-loading rifles (SLRs), while a few were of .32 bore. "The police will investigate the source of the cartridges and question the couple. Civilians are not allowed to obtain SLRs," he said over phone on Sunday.

Cheria Bariyarpur police station house officer (SHO) Ranjeet Kumar Rajak said the couple were not in the house when the CBI team conducted the raid. "The police will quiz them to ascertain how cartridges of banned bores reached their house," he said.

The probe team had also searched the former minister's official residence in Patna. The officials questioned the couple after Brajesh Thakur, the alleged mastermind in the rape and torture of minor girls living at Balika Grih, said he was in touch with Chandeshwar. Call detail records of Brajesh's cellphone showed that he and Chandeshwar had interacted at least 17 times between January and May.