Agartala, Nov 25 – Senior police and intelligence officials are still questioning a trio of arms smugglers, one of whom is alleged to have supplied weapons from Bihar, after Tripura police seized two handheld firearms and four magazines in the city.
The three suspects, who are involved in interstate arms trafficking, were brought before a local court on Tuesday and were ordered held in police custody for five days.
“Senior police and intelligence officials will continue to question the three arrested persons to know the details about the arms smuggling and their planning,” the official added, noting that authorities think the weapons were meant for shipment into Bangladesh.
The arrests followed a routine patrol on Monday night in Arundhuti Nagar, on Agartala’s outskirts. West Tripura district Superintendent of Police Namit Pathak explained that the officers were patrolling near the Bandeshwar bridge area when the Officer‑in‑Charge of the local police station flagged three people moving suspiciously. Upon stopping them, the staff discovered the two firearms, four magazines and three mobile phones.
The men named in the case are Tinku Debbarma (35) and Sumenda Debbarma (40) of Barkathal, West Tripura, and Shibash Kumar (29) from Dumeria Khurd, Bihar, who is believed to have brought the weapons into the state.
Pathak said the investigation will be carried out under the Arms Act, and preliminary checks point to the weapons being smuggled from Bihar earlier that same day. “Only after further interrogation can we confirm how the arms reached here, for what purpose and to whom they were to be delivered,” he noted.
Police reports say that Arundhuti Nagar—close to Agartala railway station—has been a hotspot for arms‑dealer busts in recent years, with many cases involving illegal firearms smuggled by train, especially from Nagaland.
In a separate operation on May 8, the Government Railway Police (GRP) and Railway Protection Force (RPF) seized eight pistols and 16 empty magazines from the Tripura Sundari Express as it arrived from Punjab’s Firozpur. A GRP officer stated that the weapons were found in two unclaimed bags and were unbranded; all eight pistols were described as point 9mm pistols.
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