Man nabbed with firearms at Sealdah station by special task force of Kolkata Police
Telegraph | 18 March 2025
A cache of arms was found under clothes in a passenger’s bag at Sealdah station on Monday morning.
The special task force of Kolkata Police picked up the man as he stepped out of the Hate Bazare Express and was walking to catch a bus.
The police said the arms were smuggled to Calcutta from Bihar via Malda.
The arrested man was identified as Hassan Sheikh, 42, from Kaliachak in Malda.
Sheikh, who hawks plastic articles on the roads and works in Madhubani, Bihar, had been in touch with arms dealers in Bihar, the police said.
Investigators said it appeared that he was only a courier ferrying the arms to a location in Calcutta’s suburbs but got caught en route.
“Preliminary interrogation revealed that the accused obtained the improvised firearms and live ammunition from Khagaria, Bihar,” said V. Solomon Nesakumar, joint commissioner (STF), Kolkata Police.
The police said two improvised single-shot guns, four improvised 7mm pistols fitted with dual magazines, two rounds of live 8mm cartridges and six rounds of live 7.65mm cartridges were found on him.
Sheikh was arrested around 5.30am when he was trying to catch a bus for his next destination.
Senior officers said the consignment was going to be delivered to the outskirts of Calcutta.
The details of the recipient are yet to be ascertained, the officers said.
Sheikh was produced before the court on Monday and sent to police remand till March 31.
Kolkata Police have intercepted multiple consignments of illegal arms in the Sealdah area in the recent past.
In November last year, the police intercepted a cache of arms on Baithakkhana Road, not far from the station.
In January, another arms consignment was intercepted in Sealdah.
Although the police said that in all these cases the arms were meant to be smuggled to other places with Calcutta only being the transit location, the rising number of incidents involving arms in the city also suggested the easy availability of illegal arms in the city.
Guns available at cheap rates and the easy availability of bullets have made a section of criminals prone to armed crimes and, at times, trigger-happy.
Calcutta has witnessed a rise in the use of smuggled and improvised arms either for extortion or for murder attempts.
The attack on an influential Trinamool Congress councillor in Kasba and incidents of shooting in New Town and Lake Gardens, being examples.
In November last year, Trinamool councillor Sushanta Ghosh escaped because an alleged hired killer’s gun had jammed. The assailant in the attempt was also from Bihar.
Police sources blamed the easy availability of arms in the city and easy access to professional hit men from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh for the spate of crimes using guns.