Bengal STF arrests 3 owners of 190-yr-old gun shop in central Kol
Times of India | 6 September 2025
Kolkata: The West Bengal Special Task Force (STF) conducted a raid at Asia's oldest licensed gun shop Nursing Chunder Daw & Co in BBD Bag on Thursday evening and arrested its three proprietors for their alleged involvement in a gun-running racket that was busted at Rahara in North 24 Parganas last month.
Some 15 firearms, over 900 cartridges, and over Rs 1 lakh in cash had been recovered from an apartment in Rahara's Regent Park on Aug 4. According to investigators, the arms had been purchased from the 190-year-old shop in Kolkata.
SP (operations) Indrajit Basu said the three owners — Subir Daw, Abir Daw and Subrata Daw — all from north Kolkata's Girish Park, were arrested from the shop. Altogether, 41 guns — most of them decades old single and double barrel guns — were seized from the shop after cops were unable to locate their records.
"Probe into the Rahara arms haul that had started by Barrackpore Police before being taken over by Bengal STF indicated a trail of procurement of firearms from the shop by Madhusudan Mukherjee alias Liton, the kingpin. Unscrupulous persons used to obtain such firearms by illegal means from the shop and sell them for a high price. While searching the shop, we did not find any record of 41 guns that we have seized," said Basu.
In Feb, two employees of the shop — Jayanta Dutta and Shantanu Sarkar — were arrested in a separate case of alleged ammunition recovery in South 24 Parganas where cartridges were found to be sold to criminal gangs illegally. Earlier that month, a raid at the house of businessman Haji Rashid Molla in Jibantala had led to the alleged seizure of 190 rounds of 7.65 mm pistol cartridges produced by the Indian Ordnance Factory, a 12-bore shotgun, and nine shells.
Alongside Dutta and Sarkar, Molla and three others were apprehended.
The shop, located within 100 m of the Kolkata Police headquarters at Lalbazar, was searched and sealed that month. It had reopened recently.
The initial operation at Mukherjee's flat in Rahara had been conducted by the intelligence department of Barrackpore Commissionerate along with the local cops. Sleuths are scrutinizing the shop's stock registers for inconsistencies in acquisition and sale of firearms and ammunition. "Discrepancies were found in the accounts, and efforts are underway to determine when these weapons were transferred from the Dalhousie shop to Madhusudan's network.
STF is also probing potential links between this illegal weapons gang in North 24 Parganas and the cartridge gang in South 24 Parganas," said an officer.