Calcutta, Sept. 22: Calcutta police have arrested a senior official of Ichapur Rifle Factory who allegedly used to smuggle out parts of guns that were later assembled in Bihar and Jharkhand and eventually made their way to Maoists, sources said.

Sources said Sambhu Bhattacharya, junior works manager in the central works depot of the rifle factory, had been smuggling parts of rifles - trigger, hammer, firing pin, hammer spring, lever changer among other things - for the past seven years.

The parts were apparently supplied to conduits in Gaya in Bihar and several areas of Jharkhand and they assembled them into guns and sold them to Maoists. Bhattacharya, 49, was arrested last night from Ultadanga and 20 empty SLR magazines and some parts of Insas rifles were seized from him.

A Bihar-based alleged conduit, Dipak Shaw, was also arrested.

"He (Bhattacharya) has claimed that this has been going on for the past seven years. Sensitive components of the original arms that were smuggled out of the factory landed at the hands of Maoists and they used them against the law keepers," said an investigator.

Sources said Bhattacharya had purportedly admitted to have smuggled out parts for at least 15 Insas rifles in the last six months.

P.K. Agarwal, the additional general manager of the rifle factory, said: "The matter has been reported to the corporate headquarters. If need be, they will form an investigation committee and conduct a probe."

"Till now, we have not had any interaction with the police. Once we get to see the list of the seized items, we will be in a position to say if they had been manufactured here or by other vendors," he added.

According to rules followed in government arms manufacturing units, an inquiry committee comprising officials from rifle factories other than the one where the alleged crime is reported is formed to probe such pilferage.

The police have apparently learnt that Bhattacharya used to smuggle out the sensitive components in small quantities.

"If you have the original components, it becomes easier to improvise a gun. Some of the components are so small that you can carry them inside a match box," said a source in the rifle factory in North 24-Parganas.

The source said Bhattacharya could have mixed the original parts with those that had been discarded.

"There is hardly any scanning of senior officers. They are neither asked to walk through a scanner nor are their bags checked while leaving the premises," said an officer.