Delhi HC frees Slovenian national level shooter detained for ‘gun-running’

The Delhi high court has quashed the detention order of Slovenian national level shooter Boris Sobotic Mikolic who was arrested from Delhi airport last year for his alleged involvement in a multi-crore gun-running case.

Mikolic had filed a plea in Delhi high court challenging his detention order by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence under the customs and anti-smuggling law COFEPOSA.

In his appeal, Mikolic claimed that he had given a detailed response to the allegations of gun-running against him but the DRI did not take into account his defence and persisted with the detention order against him.

According to his plea, Mikolic opened a gun shop inside a shooting range in Maribor, Slovenia, in 2007. Initially, he sold weapons to mainly Slovenian buyers but later as shooters came for practice from all over the world, he got acquainted with many of them from various countries and this included some Indian shooters.

Gradually, he closed his shop and started travelling to various parts of the world as a travel agent. In April 2017, he came to India along with two Indians — Amit Goel and Anil Langan. The plea said that the trio was detained by the DRI on the exit gate of IGI airport despite not possessing any arms and ammunition.

He also claimed that he was made to give statements as per the diktats of DRI officers and forced to admit, among other things, that two pistols recovered from Langan were actually his and that his wife’s company had sold arms to the two Indians at lesser price and he had come here to collect the money in cash.

Following this, his bail was rejected twice and he was released on statutory bail after the lapse of 60 days.