Home Minister P Chidambaram said the new West Bengal government will have to 'double its efforts' to recover illegal arms from the state
Home Minister P Chidambaram said the new West Bengal government will have to 'double its efforts' to recover illegal arms from the stateNew Delhi: The Centre yesterday said the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government has its task cut out and will have to "redouble" its efforts to recover all illegal arms proliferating there. Home Minister P Chidambaram said recent recovery of large caches of illegal arms in different parts of West Bengal was a matter of "grave concern".
Lethal cache: A day after the results of West Bengal Assembly polls
were declared, police have conducted about 100 raids and recovered
1,109 fire arms and 11,088 rounds of ammunition in West Midnapore
district. Over a 140 people have been arrested. representation pic/AFP"Now, we know that arms caches were in many places. So, I think the new government has its task cut out. The new government will have to redouble its drive to recover these arms. You can't maintain law and order if illegal arms proliferate in a state," he said.
Chidambaram said since May 14, a day after the results of West Bengal Assembly polls were declared, police have conducted about 100 raids and recovered 1,109 fire arms and 11,088 rounds of ammunition of different varieties from various police stations in West Midnapore district.
He said over 140 people have been arrested, some of these arms caches were at local-level CPI(M) offices and the house of a CPI(M) supporter. However, he said, bulk of arms and ammunition was recovered from proximity of CPI(M) offices and have been shown 'unclaimed'.
"Of these, about 246 are rifles of various calibres and the balance are muskets and country-made weapons. On May 22, an AK-56 and an INSAS rifle were among the recoveries from Kotwali police station area. The INSAS was one of the weapons looted from the Silda camp of Eastern Frontier Rifles in 2010," he said. Chidambaram said the recovery of illegal arms was a matter of grave concern. "Police are taking action and I think further action will be taken to recover more illegal arms," he said.
"I have maintained earlier that there are illegal arms in West Bengal, especially in West Midnapore. Netia (where several people were allegedly killed by CPI(M) cadres) proved that I was right that there was an armed camp," he said. Asked whether there was a need to re-investigate the February 2010 attack on the Eastern Rifles camp at Silda, he said "that is a call the state police have to take". "Silda loot is a very grave incident. I think some people were arrested after the incident. But I am sure the state police will look into all aspects now," he said.
