A Kolkata Police team arrested a gang of five men from Uttar Pradesh led by a BTech degree holder in a raid near Surendranath College in central Kolkata’s Sealdah area late on Monday, but the cops are yet to uncover what crime the gang was conspiring to commit.
An Italian made semi-automatic pistol and another firearm was recovered from them.
Among those arrested are Rukesh Sahani from Ghazipur, Shiv Shankar Yadav from Haldharpur, Rahul Yadav from Gazipur, Aditya Maurya from Mau and Devank Gupta from Kanpur.
Meeraj Khalid, joint commissioner of police (Crime), said the arrests were made following a tip-off.
“We are yet to ascertain why they had come to Kolkata. Since firearms were seized from them, we can say they had come here to commit crime, the nature of which is yet to be ascertained,” Khalid said at the police headquarters in Lalbazar on Tuesday morning.
On Monday night, the five men were picked from the road in front of Surendranath Women’s College, and a 7mm semi-automatic pistol and a single-shot weapon with 15 rounds of live ammunition were recovered from them.
Neither of the five had any identification papers on them.
Last year, an attempt was made on the life of Trinamul councillor Sushanta Ghosh while he was sitting outside his home in Kasba area. Another Trinamul leader in Malda’s Englishbazar was shot dead by killers from Bihar recently.
“We have not yet been able to ascertain if they [the arrested five] had any contact person in Calcutta. We will seek their custody to unearth the details behind their visit to the city,” the joint CP (Crime) said. ‘
Kolkata Police commissioner Manoj Verma said it would be wrong to say that Kolkata had turned into a safe haven for criminals from other states.
“These things happen in every state. Criminals move from one state to another. How the state police react to these movements is important,” Verma said.
Verma said in the attack on councillor Ghosh most of the people involved in the attack had been arrested, barring one or two.
“Primarily, land dispute seems to have been the motive. At this moment we cannot share any details on the case,” the CP said.
Khalid said Sahani, the apparent leader of the group from UP, had completed his BTech from a local college in that state.
“All the members are educated. There is an MCom passout, one is from ITI and two others are graduates in arts and science streams respectively. Their antecedents will have to be verified,” he said.
A railway ticket was found on Sahni, while it is unclear how the other gang members had reached Kolkata.
More than two months ago, arms were recovered from a lodge in the nearby Baithakkhana area from a gang that had arrived from Bihar.
