Guwahati, Apr 20 : The Bihar mafia is getting its firepower from militants in Nagaland.
The arrest of a youth from Diphu railway station in Assam’s Karbi Anglong with arms and Rs 80,400 in cash today revealed that a section of militants and their linkmen in Nagaland, including the two NSCN factions, is selling second-hand sophisticated arms to the mafia in Bihar.
Dashan Poddar, 23, confessed that he was transporting the arms — one AK-56 rifle and two magazines — from Dimapur to Munger in Bihar to hand them over to Ramakant Singh, who is the kingpin of a local mafia group there.
According to a police source, the AK-56 rifle recovered from him was a used one and a Dimapur-based militant had sold it for Rs 3 lakh.
“Our investigation has revealed that mafia groups in Bihar are getting arms supply, including automatic rifles of AK-series, from Dimapur, the commercial hub of Nagaland. A section of militants in Nagland is clandestinely selling sophisticated arms to mafia groups and criminal elements in Bihar,” a police official said.
The gunrunners are mostly using the passenger trains to smuggle these firearms — a trade that offered a lot of money within a short period of time.
The Telegraph had reported in its April 12, 2010 edition how the Northeast, with its poorly guarded borders with Bangladesh and Myanmar, has become a gunrunners’ gateway to India and the region’s assortment of active, “surrendered” or “ceasefire-bound” militants keep the trade flowing.
A police source in Karbi Anglong said today’s operation was undertaken based on a tip-off from army intelligence about a person ferrying arms and ammunition from Dimapur to Bihar by the Brahmaputra Mail.
“As soon as the train arrived at Diphu railway station around 6.30am, we swung into action. On seeing the security personnel approaching, Poddar disembarked from the train at the station with the bag containing the AK-56 rifle and magazines. He was apprehended by security personnel in civvies when he was loitering suspiciously in the platform,” the source said.
The police said Poddar, an unemployed youth from Bihar, was acting as an arms courier for mafia groups of Bihar.
“The mafia dons do not visit Nagaland to buy the weapons. They engage people, who usually do not arouse suspicion, for the job,” the source said.
The Assam police have contacted their counterparts in Bihar and Nagaland for further investigation of the case and to bust the racket.
A case was registered in this connection at Diphu police station and Poddar has been booked under Sections 25 (1A) and 27 of the Arms Act.
Source: The Telegraph
0 comments:
Post a Comment