Dwaipayan.Ghosh
Kolkata: Eight armed men, carrying a large cache of arms, were nabbed on the Basanti Highway close to Anandapur in East Kolkata by a large Kolkata Police force. The operation involved men from its Special Task Force (STF) and Commando Force units.
“The operation was carried out on the basis of a specific intelligence input. An operation was conducted by STF, Kolkata Police, with the assistance of the Commando Force of KP to intercept a gang of criminals proceeding to commit a major crime using firearms. The operation was carried out on Thursday evening with cops being armed and wearing bulletproof jackets,” said Additional CP (STF) Solomon V Nesakumar.
“A total of three firearms—two 7.65 mm semi-automatic pistols and one single-shot gun—two magazines, and 13 rounds of 7.65 live ammunition, three rounds of 8mm ammunition, one dagger, and one long commando knife were found from the car (Sumo) and bike in which they were travelling, along with two hand-drawn maps and ropes,” said Solomon.
Sources said the accused carried maps of entry-exit and even the house layouts of at least four separate addresses located in the Patuli-Narendrapur belt. “They were planning a major crime like dacoity and hence armed. Though no terror angle has been established, we are keeping all angles open.”
Old-timers at Lalbazar could not remember the last time commando unit officers were deployed to nab the robbers. “We had a tip-off that the accused—all criminals from Howrah and Lake Town—were heavily armed. Hence, we did not wish to take chances,” said a top cop at Lalbazar.
The accused include Suraj Chowdhury (28) from GT Road, Shibpur, Ankit Chowdhury (21) and Sankar Chowdhury (53) from Girish Banerjee Lane, Md. Tahir Ali (26) and Haider Ali (25) from PM Basti, Netai Singh (36) from Icchapur Shialdanga, Kartick Ram (48) from Bidhannagar Dakhindari Road, and Mizanur Zamadar (33) from Sangrampur.
The suspects will be produced before the court today. STF officials said appropriate charges would be filed against the accused, though specific details of the charges were not disclosed. This marks one of the largest coordinated arrests in the area this year.
This incident follows a pattern of similar seizures in the Howrah and Sealdah Station areas earlier this year. In January, police arrested five individuals near Surendranath Women’s College with a substantial cache of weapons. A separate operation a few days earlier led to another arrest at Baithakkhana Bazaar, along with large seizures, also involving firearms sourced from Bihar.
The STF intensified its operations following recent violent incidents in the city, including the broad daylight shooting of a Kolkata Municipal Corporation councillor. Last week, the force uncovered an illegal arms manufacturing unit in Cuttack district, Odisha, arresting four individuals and seizing numerous weapons and manufacturing equipment. Prior to that, illegal gun-making units were busted in Madhubani in Bihar. MSID:: 120589495 413 |

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has closed the public interest litigation petition filed in 2019 by Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker M. Appavu who had sought a direction to the authorities concerned to clean a high level water supply channel situated in a reserve forest area.

Mr. Appavu had sought a direction to the authorities to clean the channel that connected Alanthurai river and Suravali dam in the Western Ghats. The petitioner said that the water channel passed through a reserve forest in Kanniyakumari district.

Alanthurai river ran through Kanniyakumari district for most part. In 1969, the State government formulated a scheme for using its water. A small dam was constructed across the river at Kanjipparai. The high level channel connected Alanthurai river and Suravali dam, from where water was distributed to tanks in Tirunelveli and Kanniyakumari districts in the ratio of 60:40, he said.

With the channel not having been cleaned up, free passage of water to the village tanks was disrupted, he said. If the channel was not cleaned, the livelihood of the farmers would be affected, the petitioner added.

A Division Bench of Justices G. R. Swaminathan and B. Pugalendhi took note of the status report submitted by the authorities which stated that the works had already been executed and completed. The court observed that nothing survives for further adjudication and closed the petition.