NIA raids former Bihar MLC's residence in assault rifle smuggling case

The National Investigation Agency has carried out searches at 12 locations in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar including the residence of a former MLC of Bihar in a case of alleged smuggling of Kalashnikov assault rifles from Central Ordnance Depot and supplied to Naxals and criminal gangs, officials said Thursday.

The agency had taken over the case after Bihar Police allegedly recovered three AK-47 rifles along with other weapons from the house of main accused Shamsher Alam's sister Rizwana Begum who is also an accomplice, they said.

A total of 22 AK rifles, smuggled from COD, Jabalpur have already been recovered by the agency since taking over this case last year, they said.

"In this case, a large number of prohibited weapons including AK-series weapons were stolen and smuggled out of the COD, Jabalpur to various Naxal organisations and criminal gangs," NIA's spokesperson said.

He said on the basis of credible evidence collected during investigation, searches were conducted in the houses of suspect Hulas Pandey, former MLC, and his close associates at different places at Buxar, Bhojpur, Rohtas, Varanasi and Patna Thursday.

During the searches, one rifle along with various cartridges, cash over Rs 29 lakh, four laptops, five hard disks, 12 pen drives, one computer, 12 mobile phones, incriminating documents, including cash receipts and bank details were recovered, he said.

The agency said it has has arrested and remanded 15 accused in the case and so far nine accused persons have been named in a charge sheet including kingpin of the racket Purushottam Lal Rajak, Suresh Thakur, Imran Alam and Niyajul Rahman.