Calcutta, Feb.9 :    Calcutta, Feb.9:  From outside, they look like old houses gone to seed. The plaster on the walls have long peeled off, the hinges on the door are broken and layers of dust cover the floors. Inside, sit men looking equally grubby, but the wares they are selling are not. Instead, neatly locked up in boxes are gleaming revolvers of different types, all country-made, and rows of cartridges to go with them. Enter the weekly arms bazaar in the city, which flourishes from such nondescript houses in Colin Lane, Beniapukur, Topsia, Lock Gate near Charu Market, Watgunge and Bedford Lane. They open twice a week, on Saturdays and Sundays, and strictly from 4 am to 7 am, when most of the city is asleep. The police, at least the officials claim, were unaware of this racket till the chance arrest of a criminal, Kanu Shahzada, from Marquis Street last Wednesday. Kanu had strapped onto his waist a revolver he had bought from a Colin Lane bazaar. Kanu was initially reluctant to confess where he had acquired the revolver from. He first said a friend had given it to him for 'safe keeping'. He then said that it had been lying in his house for a long time. Finally, under 'sustained interrogation', he let out that, in fact, he had bought it for Rs 800 from an arms bazaar in Colin Lane. Armed with further information from Kanu, the police tracked down Aslam, who had sold him the gun in Colin Lane, and from him emerged a larger story and how far the tentacles of the arms bazaar had spread. The trail, the police found, led back to Murshidabad, where the country-made arms are manufactured. From here they are sold 'wholesale' to arms dealers, who then resell them to retailers in the city and other district towns. The main person, Aslam, told the police, was Dhiraj Sheikh, alias Hitler, who hailed from Bansberia, in Murshidabad. The inspector-general of police (south Bengal), Ranjit Mohanty, conveyed to the Murshidabad police the information that the Calcutta cops had gathered and then asked them to check its authenticity. After preliminary enquiries, the Murshidabad police, dressed in plain clothes, laid a trap for Hitler. Posing as buyers, five policemen in mufti approached one of Hitler's associates, Chanchal Khan, and asked him to take them to his 'boss'. Khan led them to Hitler's 'manufacturing unit', which employs over 10 persons in making the illegal arms. Once inside the unit, the policemen pounced on Khan and Hitler, who was supervising the operations. Hitler started firing at the cops even as he fell to the ground. The police returned the fire. As they shot at and injured two of the gangsters, the others fled, leaving their leaders behind. Half-an-hour after the police had entered the unit, Hitler, Khan and another of their associates were under arrest. Along with them, the police also seized 20 revolvers, 100 cartridges, gunpowder, iron scrap and three machines for making illegal arms. Hitler has provided the police with the names of the 'retailers' in Calcutta to whom he sold the guns. 'We are on their track now,' said a police officer.