AK-56 recovered, 4 nabbed in Sitamarhi

PATNA: Police recovered an AK-56

assault rifle

from Dariapur village under the Belsand police station area and arrested four members of notorious Saroj Rai gang from three different locations in Sitamarhi district late Thursday night.


An empty cartridge of the seized assault rifle, a live 9mm cartridge and a black sports bike were also seized during the raid conducted on Mohammad Dilshad’s residence at Dariyapur.

Sitamarhi SP Sujeet Kumar said Dilshad and his associate Jaishankar Rai were arrested from Dariapur while Raghav Rai alias Raghu and Mohammad Saddam were nabbed from different places in the area. “The Dariapur raid was conducted on the information given by Raghav and Saddam. The AK-56 is of China make,” he said.

The SP said the criminals had used the same rifle in killing one Vinod Rai under the Mahindwara police station area on December 8 last year. “Vinod was a munshi of a Muzaffarpur-based construction firm owned by one Ram Swarath Rai. The firm is involved in construction of roads worth Rs2.5 crore at Mahindwara under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana,” he said, adding the Saroj Rai gang had demanded 10% of the project cost as extortion money from the firm, which it did not pay, leading to the munshi’s murder.

Kumar said the criminals had pumped eight bullets into the munshi’s body. “Three empty cartridges of AK-56 and several others of 9mm and 7.65mm were recovered from the spot. A special investigation team was formed after the killing, leading to the Thursday night raids and arrests,” the SP said. He said the arrested criminals confessed to the crime.

“The empty cartridges recovered from the spot and the rifle seized on Thursday would be sent to the

forensic science

laboratory in Patna to ascertain if the same weapon was used in the munshi murder,” Kumar said, adding the bike seized was also used in the murder.

Police sources said gangster Saroj, his brother Rakesh Rai and at least eight others were still evading arrest. “Saroj is spreading his area of operations in Sheohar, Muzaffarpur and

Darbhanga

after the fall of Santosh Jha gang,” police sources said. Santosh was shot dead on Sitamarhi civil court premises on August 28 last year.