NEW DELHI: In the biggest arms bust of the year, the
Special Cell of Delhi Police seized a cache of 82 pistols, 124 magazines and several live rounds on Monday night while also unearthing an
arms factory located between Delhi and Meerut.
Five gun manufacturers from
Munger in Bihar were arrested. The kingpin has been identified as Mohammed Shaidullah (37). His associates are Naseem, Shabbir, Imtiaz and Obayed. The operation began around 10pm on Monday and went on till the early hours.
Police commissioner Amulya Patnaik applauded the team for the breakthrough. “It was a well-executed operation,” he said.
DCP (Special Cell) Sanjeev Kumar Yadav said that a special team, led by ACP Manoj Dixit, had been keeping extensive surveillance on gunrunners to curb the influx of weapons into the city. “On Monday, head constables Parvez and Sumer received information that two members of an illegal arms syndicate would be in Delhi with a cache of weapons. As per the informer, the criminals were to cross Singhu border near the Tikri traffic light on National Highway 1 between 11.30pm and 12.30am,” Yadav disclosed.
Teams led by inspectors Vivekanand Pathak and Kuldeep Singh stood vigil at two spots on that stretch with road barricades to slow down the passing vehicles. Around 12.40am, the police spotted a silver Verna car approaching and flagged it down. The driver, however, stepped on the gas and tried to rush his car past the Z path created by the barricades.
When the police teams tried to intercept the vehicle, the driver, later identified as Shaidullah, whipped out a pistol and shot at the cops. When the policemen shot back, the driver appeared to panic and the Verna ground to a halt. The two occupants of the car fled on foot but were chased and overpowered.
“In the search on the car, we recovered 11 pistols from beneath the driver’s seat, while 52 others were recovered from a secret cavity that had been created in the boot of the car by covering the space for spare wheel with fibre sheet and sealed with nuts and bolts,” DCP Yadav revealed. The cops also found that the Verna was stolen from Kalkaji area and was being driven with a fake number plate.
Alarmed by the sheer number of the pistols seized, the policemen interrogated the two men on the spot and got the suspects to divulge the details of their factory near Meerut where the weapons were being manufactured.
A raid was conducted at the factory which is owned by one Mohammed Furqan, a resident of Meerut. On its premises, police arrested three other men and recovered 19 more pistols along with raw materials such as springs, barrel, magazine length as well as the apparatus and instruments used in fabricating illegal firearms.
Delhi Police informed on Tuesday that the cell has seized more than 600 weapons in the past year during its drive to stop the inflow of illegal arms in the capital.