Jharkhand’s anti-terrorist squad (ATS) has apprehended three persons including a CRPF constable posted in Pulwama in connection to an illegal arms racket and supplying weapons and ammunition to different left wing extremist groups and criminal gangs in different states.

Police have also seized 450 rounds of bullets (5.56mm) so far and hope to seize more post further interrogations.

The breakthrough came two days after the state police nabbed top Maoist leader Prashant Bose, his wife and four others from Seraikela-Kharsawan. On Monday, cops took them to a seven-day remand for further questioning.

Police however haven't traced any link between Bose's arrest and the latest expose of illegal arms supplying gang but said that the arrest of the trio was done with the help of Special Task Force (STF) of Bihar. Different teams conducted a series of raids in Jharkhand and Bihar to arrest the culprits, said officials.

All three arrested originally hail from Bihar but were operating from different parts. They were identified as Avinash Kumar alias Chunnu Sharma (29), a native of Gaya, Rishi Kumar (49) of Patna and Pankaj Kumar (48) of Muzaffarpur. ATS SP Prashant Anand said that they hope to unravel more on the syndicate based on interrogations of the arrested persons.

Avinash is with CRPF’s 182 battalion and was posted in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir. “He however has been absconding from duty since the last four months,” said Anand, adding that he was inducted into Crpf on August 24, 2011 and served in Latehar, and Jagdalpur before being sent to Pulwama in 2018.

“He was in touch with dreaded gangster Aman Sao (Ranchi), Harendra Yadav (Bihar) and Lallu Khan (Chatra). Both Harendra and Lallu are currently in Sherghati jail,” he said. Rishi on the other hand is a transporter in Ranchi and also worked as building contractor at Airport Road. Pankaj was in Bhuli in Dhanbad working as coal and land broker.

“While working on a civil project, Rishi came in touch with two other contractors of Seraikela region namely Sanjay Singh and Muhahir. They roped in Rishi for supplying arms to different rebel groups who in return expanded the network with the other two accused,” informed Anand, adding that all the three arrested persons have confessed to the crime including supplying AK-47 to CPI (Maoists) along with criminal gangs run by Aman Sahu and those in Bihar.