Keonjhar: Police on Tuesday arrested five migrant skilled labourers from Bengal for committing a series of burglaries in the past two months.

A loaded revolver and live bullets was seized from them. They did not have any licence for the country-made revolver, the police said.

The arrested criminals were skilled labourers having expertise in masonry, plumbing and laying of marble flooring. They were all from Murshidabad district of Bengal.

Alongside construction, they tried out their hands in crimes to earn fast buck.

The criminals had committed nine house burgla-ries in the recent past, said inspector of Keonjhar Town police station Suryakanti Das.

"They are being interr-ogated. We suspect the involvement of more people in the gang. We are also looking into the source of procurement of the revolver and the bullets. We are trying to contact the Bengal police to find out their criminal antecedents," said Das.

Das, however, refused to name the criminals as they are yet to be remanded in judicial custody.

"They used to select houses for committing robbery and burglary after sunset. After the completion of their day-time construction work, the criminals used to roam around the town on bicycles to earmark houses at deserted places for committing the crime," Das said.

Some of the stolen articles that have been recovered from them are laptops, central processing units of computers, electronic items and gold jewelleries.

They had planned to take a break from work next month to go to home to sale the booty, the officer said.