Englishbazar police conducted raids in two areas of Malda on Wednesday night and seized a huge cache of banned sound crackers.

Police sources said they acted on a tip-off to raid Saduallapur and Rathbari simultaneously. In all, 7,740 pieces of illegal crackers were seized.

“We arrested three persons who illegally stored crackers,” said Ashis Das, inspector-in-charge of Englishbazar police station. Those arrested are Satyajit Mandal and Prasenjit Mandal, residents of Mothabari and Bijay Manda of Jhaljhalia in Malda town.

Malda police, sources said, is conducting raids to prevent use of illegal crackers during Kali Puja and Diwali.

In another case, the Englishbazar police recovered 10 smartphones, which are suspected to be stolen ones, from Mahadipur on Wednesday night. A person, identified as Samiul Sheikh, was arrested as he could not produce documents of the phones.