Ranit Kr. Singh , Kolkata – The Gobardanga police recovered three double-barrel guns and several cartridges hidden underground on Friday from a walled plot of land belonging to Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Sujit Saha in the Shaktinagar area of Machlandpur. The raid was conducted following revelations made during the interrogation of Sujit and his brother, Ajit Saha, the health officer of North 24 Parganas Zilla Parishad. Both brothers were arrested last Tuesday from their Gobardanga residence following complaints of extortion, threats, and post-poll violence.

The initial raid at their house had already yielded approximately 27 lakh rupees in cash, along with a 7 mm pistol, an air pistol, a substantial cache of 7 mm bullets, and 60 empty cartridge shells. According to police sources, the freshly recovered firearms were wrapped carefully and buried deep inside the walled property, requiring investigators to dig up the soil to retrieve them. Ajit Saha is reportedly a close associate of the former state minister and MLA Jyotipriya Mallick, compounding the political sensitivity of the ongoing investigation. 

This arms recovery follows another massive crackdown in the district involving Baduria Municipality Chairman Dipankar Bhattacharya. Following Bhattacharya's recent arrest, authorities first uncovered 80 lakh rupees at a computer training center adjacent to his residence. A subsequent excavation in a nearby jute field led to the discovery of several buried sacks and trolley bags containing an additional 3 crore rupees. The back-to-back recoveries of massive cash stashes and hidden weaponry have triggered intense scrutiny over corruption and illegal arms storage among local political leaders in the region.