Bhubaneswar, Aug. 26: Criminals are striking at will in the capital with no control on the illegal gun trade and bomb-making in and around the city.

Incidents of shooting and bomb attacks are on the rise. While the residents of Bhubaneswar were witness to a firing incident in Ganganagar area on August 22 in which one youth was killed, a few criminals hurled bombs in front of Jatni police station on the outskirts of the city on August 24. Nobody was injured in the second incident.

Karunakar Sahu, a resident of Unit-VI, said: “How can people use guns to kill someone at the slightest of provocation? It seems as if it is easy for people to get a gun in a city like Bhubaneswar, where gun culture was never there.”

Sources in the police said that both the accused arrested in the Gangnagar firing incident were history-sheeters. One accused Bilu Nayak was believed to be an illegal gun trader supplying guns to criminals and renting the ammunition to small time criminals.

A police officer said that illegal guns were transported into the city from Berhampur, Jagatsinghpur and other areas of the state.

In the last three months five such firing incidents have occurred in the Bhubaneswar commissionerate police area. In July two men looted a private company employee of cash worth Rs 4.5 lakh before injuring him with bullet shots. On June 23, a youth was injured in gun firing at Kharavela Nagar and on the same night two men looted the motorcycle of a youth at gunpoint at Saheed Nagar.

Sources said there were several cracker-making units in Jatani on the outskirts of the city. “We fear these units have been transferring raw materials for making bombs illegally,” said a police officer.

Sources said that city police were planning to raid on hideouts of illegal gun-traders in the city and cracker-making units at Jatni.