A hand drill. Twelve metal files. Three hammers. Two hacksaw blades.
Laid out on a table, they could belong to any village workshop. But on 18 July 2026, when police stepped inside a unit in Barbighi Bahiyar, in Bihar’s Begusarai district, these tools and two base machines for shaping and finishing weapons told officers exactly what they had found: a place built to turn out firearms, again and again.
The raid itself was over quickly. The work that made it possible was not.
The long watch
Long before any officer approached the site, a team from SOG/STAW-01 was already working in the shadows. Police say they developed specific technical and human intelligence, tracking the workshop’s activities and building a picture of what happened inside before a single step of the raid was planned.
What each strand of that intelligence involved has not been made public. The trail that led officers to this one building remains largely unseen. What is clear is the discipline behind it: watch first, move later.
Two country-made pistols, five magazines and live ammunition were recovered from the workshop. Photograph: (TNIE)
It is harder than it sounds. Illegal gun making in Munger, the district many such craftsmen come from, has been described as a cottage industry, run from homes and small sheds that look like any other. A workshop like this does not announce itself. It has to be found, watched and understood before anyone knocks on the door.
Assembling the net
When the time came, no single local unit was trusted with the job. Senior DSP Pankaj Kumar and DSP Sheikh Sabir supervised the operation and drew together a joint team of police and the Special Investigation Team.
The roster read like a map of Bihar’s specialised policing: SOG-01, the Arms Cell, the Hit/SWAT Team from Jamalpur, SOG-03, Khagaria’s Operation Team-12 and the Baliya police station. Each brought a different skill to a single, carefully planned morning.
Close the doors, then walk in
The plan depended on surprise, but surprise alone was not enough. Before anyone crossed the threshold, officers cordoned off the entire area. Every route out was covered. When the team finally moved in, there was nowhere left to run.
Police say they found the unit still in operation. Machines were running and work was underway. Nothing had been hidden or hurriedly dismantled, because no one inside had any warning.
Police found the unit operational, with machines running and firearms being manufactured. Photograph: (TNIE)
What officers recovered fits the picture they had built from the outside: two country-made pistols, five magazines, four live 7.65 mm cartridges and two spent cartridge cases. These were not leftovers from a one-off job but the output of a working production line.
A familiar machine
Police in Bihar have been here before. In November 2019, acting on a tip-off, they busted seven illegal mini gun factories in Munger’s Herudiyara area and seized seven base machines. Almost seven years later, the same type of machine turned up in Begusarai.
The pattern has repeated in recent months. On 16 April, Munger police raided a factory hidden inside a house in Koyri Tola. Days later, on 24 April, the Special Task Force and Munger police hit a mini gun factory at Tarapur Diara, across the Ganges. In December 2025, a joint team acted on secret intelligence to make arrests in Khagaria.
Munger once had around 37 licensed gun manufacturing units, according to IANS. Today it is better known for the illicit trade. The craft survived, and so did the demand for it.
The playbook
This is why the way the Begusarai raid in itself matters as much as what it found. Each raid in the pattern above was a response, a unit found and shut down. Barbighi Bahiyar offers something more useful: a method.
Gather intelligence patiently, from more than one source. Pool officers from specialised units instead of leaving the job to one station. Seal the area before entering. Each step is simple, but together they turned a hidden workshop into a documented find, with the proof laid out on the table.
For other districts in Bihar facing the same quiet industry, it is a playbook worth picking up.
