Manipur arms dealer held in Tripura with 4 pistols, ammunitions

A 25-year-old man, hailing from Manipur, was arrested by Customs in Tripura’s bordering district Khowai with four sophisticated foreign-made pistols while the detainee attempted to smuggle the arms into Bangladesh, officials said on Monday.

An official said that acting on a tip-off, the Customs officials arrested the arms dealer identified as Dangshua Mulji (25) from the Khowai district, along the India-Bangladesh border on Sunday night.

Mulji came to Tripura by train from Guwahati and he was intercepted at Singicherra border village under Khowai district while he was roaming along the India-Bangladesh border.

Four sophisticated Pistols (32mm and 9 mm) made in Russia, the US, and India along with 150 bullets and five magazines were recovered from him.

Customs officials, who are interrogating the youth, suspected that he is linked with a trans-border syndicate involved in arms and narcotics smuggling. Sunday night’s arms seizure took place within three weeks after Tripura Police separately arrested three people – a Bangladesh national and two from Bihar – with sophisticated arms.

On January 24, a police team raided a hotel in northern Tripura’s commercial town Dharmanagar, adjoining southern Assam, and arrested two youths identified as – Niraj Kumar (20) and Indal Mukhia (35).

A sophisticated revolver and some ammunition were recovered from the duo, who hailed from Bihar.

A police official said that as per the interrogation, the youths confessed that they came to Tripura to sell the revolver.

On January 21, Tripura Police arrested a Bangladeshi national with arms and Indian and Bangladeshi currencies after raiding a house in the Milanchakra Adarshapalli on the outskirts of the capital city.

The Bangladeshi man was identified as Samajpriya Chakma, a resident of Khagrachari district in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a southeastern region of the neighbouring country.

Police recovered a loaded 9 mm pistol, some cartridges, 25,000 Bangladeshi Taka, Rs 2.21 lakh Indian currency along with two smartphones from Chakma’s possession.

Tripura is surrounded by Bangladesh on three sides, parts of which are still unfenced in patches due to local disputes on land and demarcation-related issues.

The BSF alone last year arrested 55 Rohingyas, 620 Bangladeshi nationals and 260 Indian nationals including human traffickers in various operations.