Arms glare on Trinamool leader

KOLKATA: Ashok Mondal, one of the kingpins of the arms smuggling racket that was busted in Malda on Saturday, had delivered a huge cache of arms to a Trinamool Congress leader in East Midnapore over the past two years, CID sources said on Friday. On Thursday night, CID officers raided two homes of Trinamool panchayat pradhan Nanda Dulal Maity, but he managed to evade them.There was no trace of any arms or ammunition, too.
Since 1996, said CID sources, Mondal and Nimai Das, an employee of Rajarhat Gopalpur Municipality, had been running the arms trade. In 2002, Mondal got in touch with Maity through another man, originally a Contai resident, who used to live in Baguiati.
Maity is an influential Trinamool leader of Patashpur and in the last panchayat election, he was elected pradhan of Bhajachauli gram panchayat.
During grilling, Mondal reportedly told police that he had supplied long-range rifles and ammunition to Maity. Months back, Mondal delivered four rifles and around 350 rounds of ammunition to him, sources said. "In the last two years, Maity purchased arms and ammunition worth Rs 20 lakh from Mondal," said a CID officer.
On Thursday afternoon, CID officers first raided Maity's Kanakpur residence near Contai, but he was not there. Then, the officers reached Maity's Bhajachauli residence. There, too, they got nothing.
Police are also looking for three other persons, who reportedly purchased arms from Mondal. "We got three names - Gobinda, Deepak Duari and Dibakar - who reportedly bought arms from Mondal," said an investigator. Deepak and Dibakar are known as Trinamool workers and Gobinda has a Maoist connection.
The state police are still worried about the recent arms haul. On Friday afternoon, A K Maliwal, director (special security unit) met CID ADG Bhupinder Singh and discussed the pen pistols. Sources said he will submit a detailed report after examining the arms and would suggest measures for VVIP security.