Bihar police will explore the terror angle in the recovery of 20 pieces of sophisticated AK-47 assault rifles and spare parts of many other such weapons from Munger district in the past one month.

The police will take the help of all sister agencies in the case that at present spans four states and has all the trappings of becoming a pan-India one as the investigations progress.

The police have decided to rope in the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to probe the money laundering aspect of one of the biggest seizures of AK-47s in the country.

“We are going to explore whether there is any terror angle to the recovery of these sophisticated weapons. Our ATS (anti-terror squad) will take this up. We will also request the ED to probe whether the criminals laundered the ill-gotten money to invest in property and other assets,” additional director-general, police headquarters, S.K. Singhal said.

Singhal asserted that help from sister agencies, including intelligence wings, will be taken while investigating the terror angle as the case has spread to states like Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bengal and Bihar.

“So far, five FIRs have been lodged in connection with the recovery of 20 AK-47s and parts of several others. Six accused have been arrested so far and taken on remand,” ADG Singhal added.

Senior police officials said several of the recovered assault rifles are in good condition, triggering questions about how they reached the criminal gangs and if they were smuggled out of the Jabalpur ordnance depot in Madhya Pradesh. The officials did not rule out the possibility of the recovery of more such weapons.

“At present the recovered weapons are being tested by our forensic science lab and verification process is on to ascertain whether they belonged to the ordnance depot at Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh. We also need to investigate how these AK-47s, many of which are in good condition, reached the criminals if they were being used at all by the army,” a senior police official told The Telegraph on the condition of anonymity.

Sources said there could be three major possibilities behind the leak of these devastating weapons. Either they were old, decommissioned rifles that had once been used by the armed forces and were given a makeover at Jabalpur, or were sent for repairs after developing faults and then claimed to be irreparable, or they were in working condition when turned over to the ordnance depot.

“We need to check all the aspects. Some light is expected to be shed on the issue after proper interrogation of three accused — Purushottam Lal, Shivendra Lal and Suresh Thakur — arrested by the Madhya Pradesh police in Jabalpur,” a senior police official said.

The Bihar police have so far arrested Mohammad Imran, Shamsher Alam, Rizwana Khatoon, Niyazur Rehman (Bengal), Aamna Khatoon and Tanveer Alam (Jharkhand), and are hunting for several others.