Nine criminals held with arms and ammunition

Nine criminals have been arrested with arms and ammunitions after an encounter in a locality under the Maner police station area in Bihar's Patna district, a police officer said today.
Acting on a tip off about stocking of arms by some criminals to create trouble during the general elections, police teams raided Lodhipur-Vyapur diaria (riverine area) around midnight and ordered a group of criminals assembled there to surrender, but they opened fire on the cops who retaliated, Senior Superintendent of Police Manu Maharaj said.
Nine criminals surrendered with a large quantity of arms and ammunitions, he said.
Seven of the arrested criminals, identified as Rambabu Rai alias Fauji, Zila Rai, Pramod Kumar, Upendra alias Nipendra Kumar, Shashi Rai, Satya Rai and Anil Kumar were from Patna district, while two others Shankar Dayal Singh and Lalu Ram belonged to Bhojpur district, Maharaj said.

Seven sophisticated weapons, comprising two US-made semi-automatic rifles, one Belgium-made sniper rifle, two police rifles, one double barrel gun and one single barrel gun, besides 224 rounds of ammunitions of various weapons including AK-47, six mobile phones etc were seized from them, the SSP said.
Maharaj said some associates of these criminals managed to escape taking advantage of the darkness, throwing weapons like AK-47 and INSAS rifles in River Ganga and added that raids were on to nab them.
The SSP said four arrested criminals Rambabu Rai, Lalu Ram, Upendra alias Nipendra Kumar and Shankar Dayal Singh were wanted in several cases, while the antecedents of others were being probed.

He said the Patna Police was also probing this criminal gang's association with crime syndicates outside the state or even terror groups after taking into account the stock pile of sophisticated weapons.