The Special Task Force of Bengal Police arrested a man from Purulia on Tuesday for allegedly selling illegal firearms to Madhusudan Banerjee, a resident of Khardah on the city’s northern fringes.

Sheikh Manu was rounded up from Jhalda in Purulia after an investigation suggested that he allegedly sold double-barreled and single-barreled rifles to Banerjee after picking them up from a gun shop in Purulia town.

Officers of the Barrackpore police commissionerate had stumbled on a social media post by Khardah resident Banerjee, where he showed guns and ammunition in his apartment.

A raid there led to a huge cache of arms that included 14 guns and rifles and 905 bullets of various bores. There were double-barreled and single-barreled rifles; bolt-action rifles; 9mm and 7mm pistols; revolvers; and 16 empty magazines.

The police investigation following Banerjee’s arrest revealed that some of the arms found in his possession could be traced to a 180-year-old store in Dalhousie.

The investigation, initially handled by the Barrackpore police commissionerate, was later taken over by the state STF, and the owners of the Dalhouise shop were arrested on September 5.

“Primarily, it appears that Manu had sold the arms that were kept in the Purulia shop by its owners to the buyer in Khardah. We had earlier traced some of the arms and ammunition to a shop in Calcutta. Now we have found another shop in Purulia,” a senior officer of the Special Task Force said. “We have summoned the shop owner for questioning.”

A preliminary investigation revealed that the licence of the Purulia shop to sell guns and ammunition has expired.

Senior officials from the Purulia district had visited the shop twice in September and October last year, but were unable to find the owner.

A notice was issued instructing the shop’s owner to appear. Later, it was discovered that the shop’s owner had passed away, and no one had any clue what was happening at the shop, including whether some of the arms had been sold elsewhere.

Senior STF officers said Manu was a vital link in the cartel of illegal arms dealers who were allegedly involved in supplying stolen arms and ammunition across Bengal.

“The arrest of Manu in Purulia suggests that there could be several other licensed arms shops in the state from where guns and ammunition have been smuggled out. We will interrogate Manu to fix the exact number of arms that were taken out of the Purulia shop and sold illegally,” a senior STF officer said.

Earlier in February, the police arrested Jayanta Dutta and Shantanu Sarkar, two employees of the Dalhousie firearms shop, for allegedly supplying ammunition to a resident of Jibantala in South 24-Parganas.