Ghaziabad, Sep 4 (PTI) The police have busted an illegal arms factory here and seized a huge cache of weapons and ammunition, officials said on Saturday.

Five men have also been arrested, they said.

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The illegal arms factory was being run near the culvert of Shahzadpur village road of Muradnagar town here, police said.

Senior Superintendent of Police, Pawan Kumar, told reporters that five pistols of .32 bore, 72 cartridges, 20 half-furnished pistols, 55 barrels of 32 bore, 13 magazines, 250 magazine springs, ten semi-prepared magazines, 90 side plates, 17 trigger guards along with manufacturing instruments and other parts of pistols have been seized.

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The accused have been identified as Mohammad Mustafa, a resident of Bihar's Munger, Salam and Kaifi Alam, both from Muradnagar here, Salman, and a woman named Asgari who hails from Meerut.

Two of their accomplices -- Zahiruddin and Faiyyaz -- both from Meerut are absconding, Kumar said.

The accused told the police that the factory owner Zahiruddin, along with his wife Asgari, partner Faiyyaz, and nephew Salman, used to manage raw material for forging the illegal firearms.

Two days after bringing the raw materials, they were going to sell the fully finished pistols to "anti-social elements", according to the police.

The police have also recovered Rs 1.5 lakh cash from the accused.

The cash recovered was the proceeds from the arms' sale, and was kept for equal distribution and for purchasing raw material and other implements, police said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)