Bhubaneswar, May 16: Police have busted a firearms manufacturing unit at Panichhatra in Khurda district, 50km from here.

They have also seized three country-made revolvers, 28 bullets, three partially-made revolvers, gun powder weighing around 100 grams, a blower and other apparatus from the unit, which has been operating for the past 20 years.

Babuli Moharana, 60, the owner of the unit and his associate Adhikari Moharana, 43, are under arrest.

The duo specialise in making single-shot and six-round revolvers. "It takes 38 hours to manufacture a country made revolver. While the revolvers were priced at Rs 10,000, a single shotter would cost between Rs 5,000 and Rs 7,000," said police commissioner R. P. Sharma.

A police official said Moharana was running the manufacturing unit at his residence. "The houses of both the arrested are far from the rest houses in the village. So, the villagers did not have any idea about the firearms unit. Khurda police had arrested Babuli long ago for manufacturing firearms. We are verifying their antecedents," said the official.

"They were also manufacturing bullets. We are interrogating them to find out the number of guns manufactured and some information about the buyers," said Sharma.

The raid was made following a tip-off. The police had earlier arrested Sanatan Baliarsingh, 24, and Ranendra Pratap Das, 18, from Ghatikia for keeping illegal firearms. While a 7.65mm semi-automatic pistol with three live bullets was seized from Baliarsingh, a country-made revolver along with five bullets was recovered from Das. Baliarsingh had told the police that he had procured the pistol from Puri. Das said he had got the revolver from a unit at Jankia.

Such incidents have caused concern among the police over the illegal supply of firearms to petty criminals in the twin cities. The police had seized 92 illegal weapons from Cuttack and Bhubaneswar in 2014, which is the highest since the inception of the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar police.