Panaji: Goa police filed five separate cases after live bullets were found during security checks at Manohar International Airport, Mopa. An investigation revealed that these live rounds went undetected at other airports but were identified during screening procedures when passengers were departing from Mopa airport.
Mopa police station PI Narayan Chimulkar said that most of the persons booked are not criminals but passengers who come from “good backgrounds”. Police said that in most cases, family members of the person booked had valid gun licences.
A Mandrem resident, Dickson D’Souza, was booked last week at Manohar International Airport for possessing six live rounds of .32 mm ammunition without a valid license. The ammunition was discovered during a security check while D’Souza was preparing to board an Indigo flight to Chennai. Mopa police registered another case involving illegal ammunition. On Nov 13, a 34-year-old Gujarat resident, Kuldeepsinh Rana, was booked at Mopa airport. During a security check, a single .32 caliber live round was found in his wallet.
On Sep 10 Anshul Ghai, 26, a 26-year-old man from Dehradun was detained at Mopa Airport after security personnel found six live rounds in his bag. The man claimed he received the bag from his aunt, the widow of a late colonel, as a keepsake. Police later contacted Ghai’s aunt who confirmed his account. She said the live rounds are about 20 years old.
Earlier in the year, on May 28 a senior official of a private bank’s Jodhpur branch, Saurav Pattannaik, was booked for allegedly carrying a live bullet at Mopa airport. Central industrial security force (CISF) at the airport found the live bullet in possession with the banker.
In April, Goa police registered another FIR against a Mumbai resident, Gaurav Dalvi, after six live rounds were allegedly detected in his bag during screening at Mopa. Chimulkar said that Dalvi arrived with his friends in Goa on a flight from Mumbai, but the rounds were not detected at Mumbai airport. While Dalvi was returning from Goa, Chimulkar said, the rounds were detected in his handbag.