An alleged member of an inter-state arms smuggling racket has been arrested and five semi-automatic 7mm pistols and 10 empty cartridges seized from him.

Baishnabnagar police rounded up Rahel Rana, 36, on Tuesday night. He is from Sabdalpur under the jurisdiction of Baishnabnagar police station.

“We conducted the raid based on a tip-off. We suspect the arrested youth is associated with an inter-state arms smuggling racket,” said Pradeep Kumar Yadav, the superintendent of police, Malda.

Sources said Rana had been living at Barharwa in Sahebganj district of Jharkhand for the past few years after marrying a woman there.

“We have received details of the persons to whom he was supposed to deliver the firearms against money. The source from where Rama got the firearms is also known to us. Searches are underway to arrest those to whom the firearms were to be delivered by Rana," Yadav said.

The firearms Rana had brought from Jharkhand to Kaliachak in Malda were supposed to be sold on the clandestine market. He was riding a two-wheeler bearing a registration number of Jharkhand when the police asked to stop him.

"He tried to speed away. When the police chased him, he rammed into a guardrail and fell from the two-wheeler. We picked him up," said a source.

According to Yadav, a thorough interrogation might make Rana spill the beans on the firearms smuggling racket in Malda. The racket is known to have members in Bihar and Jharkhand.

The SP said the police had arrested 34 persons with 25 illegal firearms and 32 rounds of live ammunition in the district in the past few months.

“We registered 14 cases altogether in connection with such seizures,” he said.