Concerted drives being carried out across the state in view of assembly elections resulted in separate police units seizing huge haul of illegal arms in Azamgarh, Ballia, Jaunpur, Shamli and National Capital Region and also unearthed manufacturing units and busting gun-running gangs in the last 24 hours..
In Azamgarh, an illegal arms factory was unearthed in the forest on the banks of Hathiya river in Sidhari police circle.
Superintendent of Police of Azamgarh, Anurag Arya, said that the Sidhari police were engaged in a checking drive near Hydel Colony when they were tipped-off about an arms manufacturing unit after which a raid was conducted near the Hathiya river banks.
“Two illegal arms manufacturers, Jai Prakash Singh and Rajesh Ram, were arrested and 12 country-made revolvers, partially made revolvers, seven live cartridges, furnace, blower, tools for manufacturing guns, and many other articles were recovered from the unit,” he said.
During quizzing, the duo confessed to making arms to meet the increasing demand during the polls. They said that they had chosen forest on the river bank to run the manufacturing unit as the area was rarely visited by people. They also divulged the names of buyers after which the police have intensified efforts to nab them.
Arya said that both the arrested gun-runners had long criminal history-sheets with the police.
In Ballia, a joint team of Anti-Terrorist Squad of Varanasi field unit and Dubahar police station arrested five arms smugglers and recovered five country-made pistols, 10 magazines and a SUV on Thursday.
SP Ballia Raj Karan Nayyar said that on a tip-off about the movement of arms smugglers in the UP-Bihar border, the ATS, along with Dubahar police, cordoned Janeshwar Mishra bridge and intercepted a SUV. On checking, five pistols and 10 magazines were recovered from the vehicle. Five persons were arrested and later identified as Anshu Kumar, Deepak Tiwari, Abhishek Kumar Rai, Amit Singh and Yogesh Rai. The accused were bringing illegal arms from Bihar to supply in poll-bound districts of the state.
In Jaunpur, Sikrara police arrested Ram Surat from Ram Sahai Patti village and four arms suppliers, including Ashutosh Harijan, Abhishek Singh, Shiraj Singh and Ravi Gautam from Tahirpur area while they were finalising an arms deal.
SP of Jaunpur, Ajay Sahani said that one factory-made pistol, four country-made revolvers and several live cartridges were recovered from their possession.
The police also busted an illegal arms factory in Shamli, arrested two persons and recovered finished and semi-finished handguns in large numbers.
Two days ago, the Delhi Police had busted an inter-state firearms syndicate and arrested a 60-year-old arms smuggler, Kasim Ali of Hamirpur (UP), with 10 sophisticated pistols and 20 live cartridges. He sourced arms and ammunition from Madhya Pradesh and smuggled them in Delhi NCR, Haryana and western UP. The police said that Kasim had already supplied more than 500 firearms in Delhi/NCR in the last three years.