MP’S Sikligar Sikh community under Punjab Police gaze for illegal arms business
BHOPAL: Police in Punjab and Madhya Pradesh, in recent months, have arrested many members of the Sikligar Sikh community for manufacturing and providing arms and ammunition to anti-social elements, including gangsters in Punjab and even Maoists.
Traditionally ironsmiths, the community that once earned praises and were called ‘patriots’ for providing weapons to the army of Tenth Sikh Guru Gobind Singh has gone astray since. A section of the community honed their skills and shifted from making farm tools and sharpedged weapons to firearms, said police officers of Punjab and Madhya Pradesh (MP).
Punjab director general of police Dinkar Gupta said MP has emerged as a hub of illegal firearms as in the past seven months, at least six people of the Sikligar community, settled in four districts of MP, have been arrested for supplying arms to criminals in Punjab.
“In January, police arrested two Sikligar members from Khargone for supplying illegal .32 calibre country-made pistols and they informed that the kingpin of the gang was in contact with one Akashdeep Singh, the prime accused in the drone module busted by Punjab police in 2019,” said the DGP.
Not only Punjab, but the MP Police, which recently arrested 10 sympathisers and suppliers of illegal weapons to Maoists, found magazine of AK 47 made by Sikligars from the house of one of the accused, Ghanshyam from Gondia in Maharashtra.
Some of the Sikligars are wanted in more than six states. According to MP police, a section of Sikligars living in at least 40 villages manufacture illegal arms. “Earlier, they used traditional methods to make weapons but now they have set up lathe machines to make automatic guns. Not only in manufacturing, they have adopted technology in marketing the weapons through Whatsapp and Youtube channels. Despite regular raids, they are not ready to give up this work,” said Ig(indore) HN Mishra.