Patna: At least 140 unfinished country-made pistols, manufactured in illegal gun factories in Bengal, have been seized and five persons arrested from Munger in less than a week, thanks to information exchanged between Bihar and Bengal police.

Special task force personnel on Tuesday arrested alleged arms supplier Mohammad Ajaz, alias Bholu, from the Munger Kotwali police station area and seized 49 unfinished and one country-made pistol from him.

The weapons, Bihar police said, were manufactured in an illegal factory in Bengal's Malda district and transported to Munger by train.

On May 19, too, Munger police had recovered 80 unfinished pistols and arrested four arms dealers from a bus near Heru diara. The consignment was brought from Calcutta by train for delivery to a gun runner at Kazim Bazar in Munger town. The weapons were hidden in vegetable baskets to dupe cops.

Munger superintendent of police Gaurav Mangla on Tuesday said the arrested dealers - Munger residents Mohammad Irfan, Imtiyaz, Mukhtar and Naseem - were involved in the illegal trade for over two years. Illegal gun factories, he said, were running in Kaliachak, Burdwan, Bolpur and Malda in Bengal.

"What Bihar's Munger district used to be earlier, the same is now being done by Bengal's Malda and other districts. Lathe (gun-making) machines have been installed in Bengal to make illegal weapons, after which they are assembled in Munger, embossed and supplied to the clients," Mangla revealed.

In 2016, around 1,000 semi-finished pistols were seized from Bardah village under Munger district's Mufassil police station. Another huge consignment of illegal arms was found in a raid on an illegal arms manufacturing unit at Burdwan the same year.

A senior officer posted at the Bihar headquarters said the arms dealers shifted base to Bengal after continuous raids on mini-gun factories in and around Munger - Kasim Bazar and Hajaratganj localities had acquired the dubious distinction of being the centre of illegal weapons.

Irfan, who was arrested on Saturday, told the police that an unfinished pistol was purchased from Bengal at Rs 2,000-2,500 and sold to Bihar gangsters after finishing for Rs 4,500-5,000. "The prices varied depending on the quality of the product," he said.

Ajaz told the interrogators that all sorts of Munger-made weapons, especially 9mm and .76 bore, were in demand and fetched a good profit.

A senior STF official in Bihar said: "We are exchanging inputs with Bengal on a regular basis. They have started bearing fruits now."