Aug. 22: A CID team today raided several houses in Kalyani and recovered a large cache of arms and ammunition, including 100 bombs and 36 guns, before arresting an alleged aide of Trinamul MP Mukul Roy's son Subhrangshu and seven others.
The arms haul comes within six days of the seizure of over 1,100kg of chemicals that can be used to make bombs at a small godown on Strand Road in the heart of Calcutta. Police were apparently pursuing leads provided by two suspected members of a Bangladeshi terror outfit implicated in last year's Burdwan blast.
Today's raids in Kalyani's Saguna began at 3am. A CID team led by a deputy superintendent of police arrived at Lichu Tala in Saguna and raided one house after another.
"In the final count, we have recovered 100 pieces of live bombs, 69 rounds of 8mm ammunition and 29 single-shot improvised pipe guns, among other things," said Arnab Ghosh, the CID special superintendent of police. "The probe is at an early stage and it would not be proper to reveal much."
Police sources said 100 bombs, 29 pipe guns, one 9mm pistol, two double-barrel guns, four single-barrel guns and 69 rounds of ammunition had been seized. They said the haul also included two drilling machines, three hacksaws, four hammers and one torch.
According to the sources, cross-border smuggling of arms between India and Bangladesh had increased in the past few months. Saguna is 40km from the Bangladesh border.
Located close to the Kalyani industrial estate, Saguna is one of the crime-prone pockets in Nadia that has witnessed a sudden spurt in construction activities, leading to the mushrooming of building materials supply syndicates. Besides controlling the supply of building materials, the syndicates call the shots in land filling and the sale of plots. They have often been accused of extorting money from truck operators.
In the past few months, several residents have been alleging that Prasanta Biswas, the arrested Trinamul leader, and his associates regularly extort money from businessmen wanting to set up units in the industrial estate.
Today's CID crackdown came within days of chief minister Mamata Banerjee saying at an administrative review meeting in Nabanna that the government would no longer tolerate syndicates and illegal sand mining.
The sources said that after the chief minister's comments, the CID brass zeroed in on Biswas. Local residents said that although Biswas had "unleashed a rein of terror" in the area, nobody dared file police complaints against him because of his Trinamul links.
Bijpur MLA Subhrangshu said: "I know Prasanta because he is a party worker. But over the past one-and-a-half years, I have no links with him. Leaders who were in charge of Kalyani during the recently held municipal elections can probably comment better on him."
"Let me add that when I used to deal with Prasanta and his associates, I never allowed them to become such powerful entities," he said.
Biswas was with the CPM before he switched to Trinamul in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections last year. He is out on bail in a case relating to the murder of alleged extortionist Govinda Mandal. Biswas's clout in Saguna, the residents said, increased after the murder of Mandal.
Biswas's wife Papiya alleged police excesses on her husband and claimed he had been "betrayed" by some in Trinamul.
