Bhubaneswar: In a swift action by the police, four members of a notorious criminal gang, involved in many crimes including murder, were arrested and several sophisticated automatic weapons seized from them in Odisha capital.
Acting on a specific information that the gangsters were planning a major crime, a team of Special Squad and Tamando police station swiftly launched an operation late on Sunday night and arrested the gang members from Kalinga Vihar area, DCP Prateek Singh said.
Some automatic and semi automatic firearms and live ammunition were seized from the accused, who were active in Khurda area and involved in running of illegal laterite, black granite stone quarry and sand quarries.
They facilitate and escort transportation of illegally excavated sand and stone from quarries to reach at different destinations.
The gang members keep prohibited automatic and semi automatic unlicensed firearms with them illegally and remain ready to meet any untoward incident on the road so also inside the quarries. They use weapons to scare their opponents and also take revenge upon them.
The arrested criminals were identified as Sanjaya Khuntia alias Bapuni (34) of Khandagiri area in Bhubaneswar, Shiva Kumar Nali (47) of Khurda, Bata Krishna Pani of Khurda and Prakash Routaray (44) of Khurda.
Arms and ammunition seized from the four included a 9 mm automatic carbine (Prohibited Arms), 2 magazines of the carbine, 12 of 9mm live ammunition, 2 7.65 mm semi-automatic pistols, 7.65 mm magazines of the pistols, eight 7.65mm live ammunition, seven mobile phones, and three cars.
Police said Sanjay was involved in a gruesome murder in Dhauli area. He and his associates had murdered a man, chopped the body into pieces and packed in polyethene packets which were thrown in river Daya to destroy evidence.
He is a diehard criminal and close associate of notorious Chagala Mallick from whom he had procured the carbine, they said.
