The owners of one of the city’s oldest arms and ammunition dealers, Nursing Chunder Daw & Co. at Dalhousie, were arrested on Thursday for allegedly operating a racket involving illegal firearms sales to unauthorised individuals.

The Special Task Force (STF) of Bengal Police arrested Subir Daw, Abhiir Daw, and Subrata Daw, partners of the firm, from their residence in Girish Park.

The store, near the Kolkata Police headquarters in Lalbazar, is among the city’s best-known and oldest gun shops.

Police said the arrests followed the recovery of a large cache of illegal arms and ammunition last month from an apartment in Rahara, Khardah, under the Barrackpore Police Commissionerate. The investigation, initially handled by Rahara police station, was later taken over by the state STF.

An officer said: “On Thursday, an STF team conducted a raid at the licensed gun shop, NC Daw & Co., at BBD Bag and arrested all three owners. As many as 41 guns, including single-barrelled and double-barrelled firearms, were seized from the shop.”

The officer added that during the probe following the Khardah arms haul, the agency uncovered a “clear trail” linking the seized arms to NC Daw & Co., suggesting the licensed outlet had been a source of illegally procured weapons.

Legacy in the trade

The Daws, long-time residents of Jorasanko in north Calcutta, established themselves as the “Gun Merchants Daw family of Jorasanko”, according to a blog post shared on the gun company’s social media handle.

The post traces the family’s roots back to Shri Nrisingha Prasad Daw, who, it says, travelled to Rishra, on the banks of the Hooghly, to pursue business. “He took up the challenge of continuing the business in spite of the more powerful English traders and Portuguese pirates operating in the Hooghly river belt and succeeded greatly,” the blog states.

It goes on to explain how the family’s trade evolved: “The family business shifted to a different form of spices — gunpowder. Alongside was a more expanded trade market — Guns. Over time, and as of today, NC Daw & Co. is one of the leading gun merchants in the country.”

According to a Calcuttaphile familiar with the family’s history, Nrisingha Prasad Daw established the firearms business in 1845. The firm later split into two branches: AT Daw & Co., founded in 1849 by his son Ashutosh Daw at Esplanade, and NC Daw & Co., founded in 1845 at Dalhousie.

Under scrutiny

Police sources said the arrested owners had allegedly exploited the practice of licensed arms holders depositing their weapons at the shop — sometimes for years — without reclaiming them.

“In many such cases, the shop owners illegally sold these arms to unauthorised persons,” said an STF officer. “They also manipulated bullet usage records by claiming excess usage for testing or fake sales. In truth, the bullets were sold to unauthorised dealers at a premium.”

Another STF officer added: “During the investigation, it was found that some people procured firearms illegally from the shop and sold them at a premium. During the search on Thursday, 41 firearms for which there was no record in the official documents were seized.”

Khardah trail

Last month’s discovery of a cache of arms in a flat in Khardah, on the northern outskirts of the city, set the investigation in motion.

Madhusudan Mukherjee, a 66-year-old man living alone in the apartment, had allegedly posted a photograph of firearms in a community WhatsApp group, inadvertently drawing attention to his activities. He told neighbours he supplied army uniforms. But a raid by Barrackpore police unearthed: 14 guns and rifles; 905 bullets of various bores; double- and single-barrelled rifles; bolt action rifles; 9mm and 7mm pistols; revolvers; and 16 empty magazines. Mukherjee was arrested for illegal possession of arms and ammunition.

Following his arrest, the police apprehended several others, including alleged arms dealers from South 24-Parganas, who were identified as receivers of the illegally sourced firearms. Investigators said many of the recovered arms traced back to the 180-year-old Dalhousie establishment.