Agartala, April 5 (Bureau) A police team of North Tripura left for Badarpur of South Assam on Tuesday to verify the claim of two arms smugglers who were arrested by Railway Protection Force (RPF) on Monday at Badarpur Railway Station along with four 7.65 mm pistols, 15 rounds of live ammunition and eight magazines. Police here said that the accused persons hailed from Bihar were waiting for boarding in Agartala bound train at Badarpur with some baggage. Based on a tip-off, RPF jawans had conducted raids and detained them. Later, they were handed over to the Assam police. “During interrogation, they claimed the arms were brought to supply in Agartala but did not disclose details.
Receiving the communication from Assam counterparts, SP (North) sent a three members senior police team to verify and get details of their claim. If required they will be brought here for investigation to track down the racket,” said a senior police officer here. He said the accused persons were identified as Suman Kumar and Vikas Kumar Tiwari – residents of Bihar who were apprehended during the RPF raid but another member of the gang Indrajit Kumar managed to escape. According to report, the trio was spotted standing below a foot-over bridge at Platform and based on specific information two of them were detained. According to intelligence officials, arms and ammunition from Myanmar via Dimapur of Nagaland and Munger of Bihar via Kishanganj have been smuggled to criminals of Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh through Tripura.
After the expansion of railway service at the southern end of the state, the smuggling of drugs and arms to Bangladesh has increased manifold. “We cannot rule out the possibility of arm supply to the local criminals, as Tripura is going to assembly polls in less than a year where criminals, money and muscle power will play a vital role because of political realignments. Therefore, we have taken extra measures not to tackle the menace during the election and the issue has already been informed to Ministry of Home Affairs,” the official said. On the other, in a joint operation, Tripura police and Tripura State Rifles (TSR) jawans recovered two country-made guns at Ratannagar locality of Raishyabari Police Station area under Dhalai district on Monday. Police said here on Tuesday following an intelligence input police and jawans of TSR 12 battalion had conducted raids in the village and recovered two unclaimed country-made guns.
However, police have yet to find out the source of the arms or trace the involvement of anybody in the case. Meanwhile, BSF detained four Indian citizens in the Rahimpur area of the India-Bangladesh border in the Sepahijala district on Sunday. According to the report, a 52 -years old, Sandhya Debnath along with her 19 years old son Binoy Debnath hailing from the Nadia district of West Bengal was detained after they entered Indian territory from Bangladesh illegally. During interrogation, accused Debnath confessed that about a month ago they had reached Tripura from Kolkata and crossed the Indian border to Bangladesh and met their relatives there but while returning BSF caught them. She revealed the name of one Kauchar Miah, a resident of Sepahijala district who had managed the illegal entry and exit from the sides.