TWO WEAPON SMUGGLERS HELD, 13 COUNTRY-MADE WEAPONS RECOVERED

PRAYAGRAJ: A special operations group (SOG) team of the district police along with Ghoorpur police nabbed two weapons’ smugglers on Saturday. With the arrests, police claimed to have busted an interstate operation involving supplying sophisticated countrymade weapons procured from Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh to clients across Uttar Pradesh and as far away as Mumbai.

The arrests came as a result of a tip-off following which the SOG and Ghoorpur police team nabbed the two bike-borne men from near a well-known roadside eatery in Ghoorpur.

The police team recovered 13 weapons including 12 countrymade handguns, a pistol, seven live cartridges and a bike from these two alleged smugglers, SP (trans-Yamuna) Saurabh Dixit said.

He said that the interrogation of the two accused identified as Rajendra Nishad of Jhunsi and Bheem Shankar Pathak of Meja revealed that the UP STF had also arrested them on charges of weapon smuggling in the past. “During questioning, the duo revealed that they used to procure the weapons from Khandwa at cheap rates and sell them in Prayagraj at a cost of Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 each. The same weapons they used to sell in Mumbai for as high as Rs 40,000. From Khandwa, they used to board a bus with the illegal weapons and reach Rewa from where they used to come to Prayagraj on bike hiding the weapons,” he said.

Police said that Khanndwa is fast emerging as the new illegal arms manufacturing den in North India. Earlier, Munger district of Bihar held the monopoly. Both are known for making unauthorised firearms far better in quality than those made illegally in different districts of UP, including Lucknow, Barabanki, Hardoi and Shahjahanpur.

Pathak had been arrested in 2017 from Colonelganj in Prayagraj with five illegal pistols, in 2019 with seven illegal weapons in Jhunsi and again in Shankargarh area with 10 weapons a few months later but every time he made bail, police added.

Likewise, Rajendra was arrested by Georgetown police in 2015 with eight country-made bombs and in 2019 by Jhunsi police for running an illegal weapons-manufacturing factory.