Sleuths of the Anti-Terrorists Squad (ATS) who in April last busted a gang involved in smuggling parts of arms from overseas and assembling them here to dispose it off to hardened criminals at higher rates, made further breakthrough when they arrested the owner and manager of Kisan Gun House in loutche Road after finding them to be part of the syndicate, on Friday. They also recovered a 7.65 bore pistol and two 30.06 bore rifles besides other things from the said gun house during search operation.
According to ADG (law and Order) Mukul Goel, the ATS team which is already working on the above gang arrested the owner of Kisan Gun House, Ajay Pal Singh Sharma, from his house at loutche Road and manager Harish Chandra Pandey, from his residence in Jankipuram, on Friday afternoon. The two during interrogation confessed of their involvement in the gang and revealed that they tempered with their gun house records to facilitate sale of weapons assembled with the help of parts smuggled illegally from overseas. Goel said that now they will take both on police custody remand to extract information of involvement of other gang members.
It may be mentioned that in last April, STF held four members of the gang identified as Mohamed Khalid, a native of Pul Gulam Hussain in Chowk, Mohamed Zunaid Arshad aka Chote, Kallu Sharma and Vimal Kumar Vishwakarma aka Kallu, all residents of Kanpur. The cops recovered three assembled pistol, one sample pistol of Bareta Company, four frames of pistol, arms licenses, and other items in large quantity besides diagrams, photo albums, cash etc. Khalid later revealed that he was fascinated with foreign made arms from his childhood so with the help of his maternal uncle he came in
contact with arms dealer in Kanpur and later through him, he contacted an arms dealer in Sirsa district of Haryana whom he identified as Rs Jain Brothers” owned by one Anil Jain. He said that with his help, he contacted Shivanandan Shetty, of Mumbai who used to smuggle parts of foreign weapons for the above purpose. later in association with
Shetty and one Elwin Deesa, also hailing from Mumbai, they started getting foreign parts and after getting them assembled they supply it to Ramzan and Qarban, of Naubasta in Kanpur who subsequently disposed it off with the help of National Gun House at loutche Road. So far they sold 160 weapons in several states. Khalid said that he also pumped his earning in real estate business in Gudamba and Wazirganj. later on basis of the above information, ATS also managed to nab Elwin Deesa, hailing from Mumbai, who is one of the key accused. Deesa, a retired employee of Air India is
over 80-years of age but still playing a key role in the racket before he was arrested. ATS also recovered some foreign smuggles consignments from the possession of the accused which he brought to deliver to his other gang members. The probe pointed that the gang was active in UP, along with Bihar, Maharastra, Haryana, Punjab etc which is smuggling parts of foreign made weapons from Singapore and Canada. It also came to the knowledge that the parts were later assembled and sold to criminals claiming that as foreign made weapons. They also purchased old weapons and damaged them and later put that number on self made weapons and dispose it off at higher prices. The gang was also having contacts with some arms dealers who facilitate their business.