The police in Begusarai seized a cache of sophisticated weapons, including an Insas rifle, and arrested three alleged arms smugglers close on the heels of recovery of an AK-47 semi automatic rifle and other ammunition from the district on Tuesday.

Acting on information elicited from the arrested arms dealers, a police team conducted a raid at the house of Mahendra Yadav at Sahma village under the jurisdiction of Matihani police station in the district and arrested three persons — Mahendra Yadav, his son Ash Kumar and Ram Pravesh Yadav.

During a search at the house, the raiding team seized an Insas rifle, a rifle of 315 bore, a magazine, 10 live cartridges of different calibres and Rs 50,000 in cash.

The cops were taken aback after the recovery of the Insas rifle, which is a prohibited bore and not supplied to civilians.

The seized weapon is suspected to have been looted from security personnel.

“We are trying to ascertain from where the gun runners obtained the Insas rifle, which is supplied only to the Indian Army and security personnel. The arrested persons are being quizzed by district police and intelligence wing officials,” Begusarai superintendent of police (SP) Awakash Kumar told The Telegraph over phone on Thursday.

On Tuesday, an AK-47 semi automatic rifle, a 9mm pistol and a number of live cartridges were seized and four arms suppliers were arrested from the same village.

One of the four arrested arms dealers, identified as Moni Singh alias Prabhakar Kumar, revealed to the interrogators that he had obtained the sophisticated weapon from a member of the gang led by Ajay Singh.

Ajay alias Kobra alias Tiger, a resident of Pahsara village under the jurisdiction of Navkothi police station in Begusarai district, was killed by armed criminals at his native village in December.

Ajay was facing 24 cases related to murder, extortion and loot in Begusarai district alone. A close associate of Ajay later sold AK-47 to Moni Singh.

Moni is learnt to have amassed huge wealth through illegal means.

He was reportedly engaged in smuggling of liquor and illegal arms.

“Details of property accumulated by Moni, also called Sardar, through unlawful activities are being collected. Later a proposal will be submitted to the economic offences unit of the state police to confiscate his ill-gotten property,” the SP said.

Officials associated with the investigation didn’t rule out the possibility of the seized AK-47 being part of the huge consignment of AK-47s dropped at Purulia in Bengal in 1995. Moni had told the senior police officials engaged in the operation that he possessed three AK-47s and had struck a deal with Maoists. However, only one of them was seized.

“Searches are being carried out in order to recover the remaining two assault rifles. The arrested persons will be taken on remand for further quizzing,” Awakash said, adding that the links of the arrested arms dealers with those of Munger were also being verified.

In Munger, altogether 20 AK-47s smuggled from the central ordnance depot at Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh were seized and over a dozen persons arrested.