Cuttack, Aug. 25: Police have busted an illegal arms producing unit and arrested one person with five firearms and manufacturing equipment during a raid at Sankarpur in Choudwar, about 10km from here.

The accused, Jayanta Ojha, 42, was arrested from the same house in April 2014 after the police had found an illegal firearms manufacturing unit functioning there.

A team from the Choudwar police station raided Jayanta's house after receiving a tip-off that Jayanta had revived his business of producing firearms after his release on bail and had also started selling firearms to criminals.

During the search operation on Wednesday night, the police found firearms, other arms and manufacturing equipment such as iron vice machines, sander machines, hammers, iron pliers and welding machines.

"Jayanta is a professional firearms manufacturer. He used to manufacture country-made revolvers, pistols, single-barrel guns, swords, bill hocks and bhojalis (daggers) and sell them to criminals," assistant commissioner of police Trinath Mishra said.

"Jayanta had taken over the illegal gun manufacturing factory from his father," Mishra said.

His father, Bira Kishore Ojha, had been running the illegal unit from the backyard of his home for about four decades and his customers included dreaded criminals of Cuttack city.

Bira Kishore was arrested and jailed in 2009.

After his death, Jayanta had taken charge of his father's illegal arms manufacturing business.

"Jayanta had recently sold a revolver to Ajay Behera of Belgachhia who was earlier involved in a murder case. Subsequently, Behera was arrested and a country-made revolver, which was made by Jayanta, was seized from his possession," Mishra said.

"Efforts are on to collect information about the involvement of others in the business," said another police officer investigating the case.

The police are also trying to find out who had bought firearms from Jayanta.

Small gangs of criminals rely on locally-made firearm because they are cheaper compared to those smuggled from places such as Bihar.

The local units sell a firearm for anything between Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000, while the prices of firearms smuggled from Bihar vary between Rs 50,000 to Rs 60,000.