The arrests were made near Paradise cinema around 5 pm. Among those arrested is the racket’s alleged kingpin Rafiq Mistry (30), a resident of Joynagar in South 24-Parganas. He has been supplying arms to Akra and Santoshpur in South 24-Parganas, said Jawed Shamim, Deputy Commissioner (Detective Department).

“As per our information, these guys are basically inter-state gun-runners,” said Eastern Command CPRO Group Captain R K Das.

Among the arms seized were two 9 mm pistols and seven pistols of 7.62 calibres. Shamim said each US-made gun was worth at least Rs 75,000 - the haul altogether would cost Rs 6.75 lakh.

“After watching their movements for long, we set a trap using policemen as fake customers,” Shamim said.

This is the second such instance within a week. On April 2, the CID had arrested one Tapan Saha of Howrah and recovered seven 0.32 bore automatic pistols, one .38 police revolver and 150 rounds of ammunition. The arms, Saha had said during interrogation, had been procured from Munger in Bihar while the ammunition was from Uttar Pradesh.