Patna hospital murder suspect held in Kolkata: How Bihar-Bengal criminal nexus is ‘deepening’

On Sunday, the Kolkata Police’s Special Task Force (STF) arrested 26-year-old Tauseef from a guesthouse in the city. He is accused in the murder of Chandan Mishra, a 36-year-old murder convict who was out on parole and was gunned down inside a Patna hospital earlier this month, allegedly due to gang rivalry.

The Kolkata Police said that Bihar police were initiating legal action to take custody of the accused, three of whom were also arrested.

A retired senior police official notes that the cross-border movement of criminals poses considerable challenges for law enforcement. “This incident is not isolated, but rather indicative of a worrying trend where individuals involved in criminal activities in one state are increasingly found operating, or seeking refuge, in the other,” the official said.

CPI(M) central committee member Sujan Chakraborty, however, alleged that the state government is complicit. “Criminals are considering Bengal and Kolkata safe havens. Can that happen without the help of those who manage the local police? Criminals feel someone here can ‘manage’ things for them,” he said.

In response, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh dismissed the charge, saying that cross-border criminal movement is not unique to Bengal. “There have been incidents where crimes occurred here but the criminals were traced to other states. We’ve even seen dacoity camps operating in neighbouring states, from where criminals were sent to Bengal,” he said.

Ghosh cited an alleged instance from Asansol: “After a dacoity in Asansol, it was found that the culprits had been trained in a neighbouring state. They were supplied arms there and sent here to commit the crime. At the time, we did not say that the state was a haven for criminals.”

He also mentioned arrests of alleged Rohingya infiltrators in Agartala. “Some were heading to Delhi, others were planning to catch a train to Bengal. It is our intelligence network that helped arrest many of them from neighbouring states.”

In 2024, Bihar gangster Pappu Chowdhury’s name cropped up in the attempted murder of TMC councillor Sushanta Ghosh. Chowdhury and fellow Bihar gangster Subodh Singh have been linked by police to a number of high-profile crimes in Bengal — including the 2019 murder of BJP leader Manish Shukla and the 2023 killing of Durgapur businessman Raju Jha. Singh’s name has figured in several cases across multiple Bengal districts.

In 2024, four suspects arrested in connection with jewellery shop heists in the state’s Nadia and Purulia were allegedly found to be part of a Bihar-based gang.

Police sources estimate around 50 criminal gangs operate in the border areas of Bihar — with links extending into Bengal, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and even Nepal. According to them, joint operations by the Kolkata Police STF and Bihar STF over the past three years have resulted in at least 58 arrests and the seizure of over 115 firearms, many of them allegedly sourced from illegal arms factories in Bihar.

The arms trade between the two states remains a growing concern. A joint raid in Bihar’s Munger last year uncovered an arms assembly unit where gun parts and equipment were seized. Similar crackdowns in Kolkata and parts of Jharkhand have led to the recovery of illegal firearms and cartridges.

“The porous nature of the Bengal-Bihar border, and the ease with which criminals move between jurisdictions, makes things difficult,” said a former police official. “We need far more rigorous inter-state coordination than we currently have.”

Another senior retired police official expressed worry. “Not developing intel and not taking proactive measures is our failure. What is happening in Bihar is not our lookout, but if time and again, criminals are found to be escaping to Kolkata to evade arrest, that brings a bad name… It is definitely worrying.”