Arms dealer nabbed, guns en route to poll-bound UP seized
NEW DELHI: After a string of seizures of illegal liquor en route to Uttar Pradesh for the Assembly elections, the Delhi Police Special Cell have arrested an arms dealer who was transporting weapons made in England for the ongoing elections. The accused has been identified as Mohammad Arshad and arrested from Seelampur, after the police had received a tip-off regarding his movements.
A total of 21 illegal firearms, including five local-made semiautomatic sophisticated pistols of 7.65 mm with 5 magazines, 14 country-made pistols of .315 Bore and two England-made pistols of 7.65 mm were recovered from the accused.
According to a senior police official of the Special Cell: “We had been working on identifying the gangs involved in trafficking of arms in Delhi and NCR regions. The information came to the fore on February 19. When the information was developed, we found that an inter-state arms racket was operating in the Capital”.
Accordingly, a trap was laid in Seelampur. Around 6.45 pm, the accused — holding a green coloured bag in his hand — was spotted near the informed location and was arrested upon identification.
Upon his interrogation, it was found that Arshad was going to supply the seized firearms for the elections in Uttar Pradesh. He had in fact manufactured the country-made pistols, while the local semiautomatic pistols were purchased from another arms dealer Chotu, based out of Muzaffarnagar. “Two and half years ago, he (Arshad) came in contact with Lal Mohammad, from whom he learnt the process of manufacturing of country-made pistols. Thereafter, he started manufacturing countrymade pistols after purchasing the raw material from different shops in local markets. Meanwhile, he came in contact with Chotu, another supplier of illegal arms. He used to purchase the illegal local made semiautomatic pistols from Chotu and sell it to one Rifakat,” the officer added.