Ranchi, Nov 25 (PTI) The Jharkhand anti-terrorist squad (ATS) Thursday said it has busted an inter-state arms and ammunition racket and arrested five persons, including a serving BSF havildar and a retired personnel of the force for being allegedly involved in supplying ammunition to the banned CPI(Maoist), other splinter groups and criminal gangs in various states and seized a large quantity of arms and ammunition from them. The arrest comes close on the heels of the ATS arresting four others earlier this month, including a CRPF personnel for allegedly supplying ammunition to the banned ultra outfit and other bodies. With this arrest a total nine persons have been arrested by the ATS for their involvement in the inter-state arms racket, its superintendent of police Prashant Anand said. "ATS has busted a big arms and ammunition inter-state racket and arrested a BSF havildar for supplying arms and ammunition to criminal gangs, banned ultra outfits including CPI (Maoist) and splinter groups," he said. The ATS SP said the arrested were involved in arm rackets in various states including Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh among others and a huge quantity of arms and ammunition was seized from them including semi automatic pistols and live cartridges. In the course of interrogation, it was found that the accused had supplied ammunition for AK-47 and INSAS rifles in huge quantities, Anand said. A case has been registered against all the arrested under various sections of Indian Penal Code, Arms Act, Criminal Law (Amendment) Act and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, he said. ATS officials had earlier said that prima facie it appeared that the gang was involved in making quick money and the arrested persons had confessed to supplying ammunition in the past. They were also in touch with gangsters in jail using social media platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram. Anand said the BSF havildar hailed from Seraikela-Kharsawan in Jharkhand and was posted at 116 battalion of the force at Ferozpur Punjab. The retired BSF personnel hailed from Bihar, he said. In addition to the BSF jawans, the ATS had arrested a personnel of CRPF 182 battalion on November 16. The 29-year-old CRPF jawan, a resident of Imamgunj in Gaya district, was posted with CRPF 182 batallion in Pulwama since 2017 but had been absent from duty for the past four months. He was earlier posted with the 112 batallion of CRPF in Latehar and was also with 204 batallion of Cobra in Jagdalpur, the ATS officials said. Earlier this month a special ATS team had conducted raids at several locations and arrested a 40-year-old dealer in illegal arms from Chirkunda in Jharkhand"s Dhanbad district. PTI NAM KK KK KK