Acting on a tip-off, the special operation group of Siliguri Metropolitan Police and a team from Pradhannagar police station raided a house in Champasari, ward 46 of Siliguri, on Wednesday and seized banned crackers from it.

A person has been detained in this connection.

“The crackers were stored in a house. It is a residential area where stocking such a huge quantity of crackers is illegal. All the crackers have been seized. A person who is suspected to have piled the stock, has been detained,” said a police source.

The police are yet to assess the cost of the seized crackers and find out from where those were brought into the house.

Police suspected that an illegal trade of crackers had started. A section of people are planning to sell the crackers during the upcoming festivals of Diwali, Kali Puja and Chhat Puja.

In the past one week, this is the third successive seizure of crackers in Siliguri sub-division. Earlier, crackers were seized during two different raids conducted in Matigara which is in the northwestern outskirts of the city.

Arrest

Police in Balurghat arrested a youth on Tuesday for passing lewd comments at a homemaker and for intimidating her father-in-law with blank shots after the latter protested his act.

Krishna Sarkar, the accused, is from ward 3 of Balurghat town.

On Sunday, when the woman was walking on a lane in the area, Krishna passed lewd comments at her. As her father-in-law, who was nearby, protested, Krishna verbally abused him, took out a firearm and fired three rounds in the air.

Cops found three empty cartridges at the site.

Krishna, who was absconding, was nabbed on Tuesday. The court on Wednesday sent him to four days in police custody.