Achi news desk-
New Delhi/Kolkata: CentreThe Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday recovered several arms and ammunition, including foreign-made pistols, during raids at various places in Sandeshkhali, West Bengal. The officers provided this information.
He said the raid was conducted in connection with an incident of attack on Enforcement Directorate (ED) staff by Trinamool Congress leader Shahjahan Sheikh’s supporters.
A team comprising CBI, bomb disposal squad, National Security Guard (NSG), central military forces and West Bengal Police carried out the raid in a village along the Sunderbans in North 24 Parganas district, officials said.
A CBI spokesperson said, “During the investigation of this case, information was received that the lost luggage and other items from the ED team were kept at the house of a relative of Sheikh in Sandashkhali, North Parganas 24. “Subsequently, the CBI team along with the CRPF personnel today raided Two places in Sandashkali.”
Officials said a huge cache of small arms and ammunition, including foreign-made pistols, was in operation by afternoon.
The spokesman said that during the raid, CBI seized three foreign-made pistols and one pistol, one Indian-made pistol, one police pistol, one domestically-made pistol, 120 cartridges of nine millimeter (mm), 50 cartridges of caliber Point 45, 120 cartridges of nine mm, 50 cartridges in caliber Point 380 and eight cartridges in caliber Point 32.
He said in a statement, “Apart from this, many objectionable documents related to Shahjahan were also found. Several objects, suspected to be country-made bombs, were also found. The NSG team neutralized them.”
According to officials, the operation was carried out across Sandashkali to raid the target locations, while the NSG units were tasked to deal with the explosives discovered during the operation.
In this regard, a senior official said in Kolkata that five teams of CBI officers assisted by central forces including the West Bengal Police and the National Security Guard (NSG) raided a house in Serbia in the Sandashkhali area of ​​North 24 Parganas district.
The officer told PTI, “We received intelligence about storage of huge quantity of arms, ammunition and explosives. A total of 12 weapons including foreign-made pistols were seized. Explosives were found in the cells. The search operation is still on.”
CBI sources said the owner of the house is a relative of Shahjahan Sheikh, identified as Abu Talib Mullah.
“It is still unclear why such a large amount of weapons, ammunition and explosives were kept inside the house,” he said.
The security forces surrounded the house which is located in water bodies used for fish farming.
Central forces use metal detectors outside the house to check if weapons and ammunition have been buried elsewhere. A robotic device was also used for this work.
The Enforcement Administration team was attacked in Sandashkali on January 5, when they raided Sheikh’s premises in connection with alleged ration fraud.
During its investigation, CBI received information that a huge quantity of weapons were stashed in Sandeshakhli.
Sheikh was arrested by the West Bengal Police on February 29. Three ED officials were injured in the attack by a mob of about 1,000 people.
