Ahead of the Republic Day celebrations, Tripura Police arrested two youths hailing from Bihar with a sophisticated revolver on Saturday. 

A police official said that acting on secret information; a police team raided a hotel in northern Tripura’s commercial town Dharmanagar, adjoining southern Assam, and arrested two youths identified as – Niraj Kumar (20) and Indal Mukhia (35) – on Friday night. The official said that as per the preliminary interrogation, the youths confessed that they came to Tripura to sell the revolver.

“Further interrogation has been going on to gather all the details about the arms trading,” he said.

Friday night’s arms seizure took place within four days after Tripura Police arrested a Bangladeshi national on January 21 with arms and Indian and Bangladeshi currencies after raiding a house in the Milanchakra Adarshapalli on the outskirts of the capital city.

The Bangladeshi man was identified as Samajpriya Chakma, a resident of Khagrachari district in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a southeastern region of the neighbouring country. Police recovered a loaded 9 mm pistol, some cartridges, 25,000 Bangladeshi Taka, Rs 2.21 lakh Indian currency along with two smartphones from Chakma’s possession.

In view of the Republic Day celebrations falling on Sunday, the Border Security Force (BSF) and all other security forces have stepped up security both -- along the India-Bangladesh border and sensitive and vulnerable places of the bordering state for the past few days.

A BSF spokesman said that after the Bangladesh unrest began last year, the BSF has intensified its domination and operations along the 856-km India-Bangladesh border in Tripura to prevent infiltration, exfiltration, and trans-border crimes including smuggling of contraband.

“The security along the India-Bangladesh border has been further intensified to prevent any kind of cross-border infiltration and illegal activities,” the spokesman said.

Tripura is surrounded by Bangladesh on three sides, parts of which are still unfenced in patches due to local disputes on land and demarcation-related issues. The BSF alone last year arrested 55 Rohingyas, 620 Bangladeshi nationals and 260 Indian nationals including human traffickers in various operations.