Continuing its relentless pursuit of armed peddlers, Special Cell of Delhi Police on Thursday claimed to have arrested a truck driver and recovered 24 semi-automatic pistols from him. The interrogation of the accused revealed an interesting modus operandi where truckers are being used to smuggle illegal weapons made in Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh for criminal elements in Delhi, its peripheral areas and Mewat region of Haryana.
Khargone, Sendhwa and Dhar districts of Madhya Pradesh have emerged as the new hub of illegal weapons after Bihar’s Munger. Special Commissioner of Police, Special Cell SN Shrivastava said they have arrested 45 men in the last one year in connection with illegal gun-running from this region and recovered 285 sophisticated pistols of various caliber, seven rifles, 1,090 cartridges of different bores and an improvised AK-47.
“In the present case, accused identified as Naim (21), a resident of Mathura, UP was arrested by the Special Cell on Tuesday following a tip-off from Siddharth Extension in South-East Delhi. A haul of 24 semi-automatic sophisticated pistols of 7.65 mm was recovered from him,” Shrivastava said. A container truck used for the transportation of the weapons has also been seized. Some of the recovered pistols are engraved with Made in England, the rest with Made in USA. During interrogation, he revealed he had earlier supplied illegal weapons in Mathura, NCR and Delhi.
A team of Delhi Police travelled through Western Uttar Pradesh, Eastern UP, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh region to collect information regarding the modus operandi and area of gangs involved in gun-running. The team got great success in the last one year and arrested several persons with arms and busted rackets, the Special Cell said. After sincere efforts put in by the team, it is learnt that suppliers and receivers of these illegal weapons have changed their mode of supply of these weapons. They joined hands with some transporters/truck drivers of Maharastra-Delhi highway, who ply their trucks via Dhar, MP, he added.
On Tuesday, after a tip-off that one Naim would be near Gurdwara Bangla Sahib, Siddharth Extension, Ring Road around 9 pm along with his truck to deliver a huge cache of semi-automatic weapons to his contact, a trap was laid. A truck came and the driver alighted from the container carrying a bag. He waited for some time. When no one turned up, he got inside the container and as he was about to leave, he was overpowered and apprehended.