Samajwadi Party’s lok Sabha candidate from Bijnor Shahnawaz Rana was arrested from the IGI Airport in the Capital after he was found in possession of a live cartridge in his hand baggage. The incident was reported on Wednesday evening while he was checking in to board a Jet Airways flight to Dubai.
Rana, who is known to have a notorious antecedent as a businessman and a UP politician, was passing through the X-ray screening machine at the airport, when the CISF officials detected live ammunition in his hand baggage. On physical checking of the baggage a 0.38 bore cartridge was discovered from his bag. During investigations Rana was not able to produce any valid documents for carrying the ammunition. Rana has a licenced gun but the licence is only valid in Uttar Pradesh. The CISF officials immediately called in the IGI Airport police which took the leader into custody. When interrogated, Rana feigned innocence. “Rana claimed that he did not know about the cartridge being in his bag. A case under Section 30 of the Arms Act has been registered for carrying the cartridge illegally. He was arrested but it being a bailable offence, he was let off on bail,” said a police official.
Rana, a resident of Muzaffarnagar and a former MlA of Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), has contested lok Sabha elections earlier from Bijnor seat. Rana is accused in a sensational case of attempting to rape two Delhi-based girls while they were on way to Delhi from Mussoorie. The case pertains to June 2011 when the two girls were abducted by seven accused, including Rana’s cousin and his accomplices. The girls were forcibly dragged into a car bearing a VIP number plate while they had stopped at a gas station on Delhi-Mussoorie highway. The women were abducted and molested at gunpoint by the accused in a nearby house. The car that was allegedly used to abduct the women was recovered from Shahnawaz’s residence. After the incident, BSP chief Mayawati had suspended the Bijnor MlA from the party.