About 2,000 listed criminals in the city and the district, mostly belonging to outlawed organisations, hold these illegal arms including revolvers and pistols. They also possess AK-56 and AK-47 rifles, SLRs (self-loading rifles), nine-shooters and pipeguns, said sources in Khulna Metropolitan Police, district administration and intelligence agencies and at the office of the deputy inspector general of police.

Two factions of Purba Banglar Communist Party, New Biplobi Communist Party, Biplobi Communist Party, Chhinnamul Communist Party and some other outlawed organisations mainly possess the illegal arms.

Moreover, armed cadres of godfathers in different political parties hold many of the unlicensed arms.

Licences for only 5,500 have so far been renewed. A list of 357 people has been sent to different authorities and to district police across the country in a bid to seize the unlicensed arms, the sources added.

Meanwhile, 82 firearms looted from police and ansars in the district in 2002 are yet to be recovered. Only three of 19 rifles looted from Daulatpur Jute Mills Ansar camp at Khalishpur on April 24 last year have so far been recovered.

The list of criminals prepared before launching the Operation Clean Heart last year included 160 godfathers, who hold positions in different political parties. Only 34 arms were recovered during the Operation Clean Heart and Operation Spider Web.

Huge arms and ammunition previously possessed by notorious criminal Ershad Shikder, who is to be hanged shortly, have not been recovered yet. Over 200 of these arms are now allegedly in the possession of two influential ward commissioners of the city corporation, a former ward commissioner and a political leader.