‘Stop the bullets, the shootings will end’

TRIGGER-HAPPY Law-and-order experts and serving officers say pilferage of ammunition allows criminals easy access to bullets, leading to heinous street crimes. Delhi Police say they have busted several gunrunners in the city and nearby states, and a crack

NEWDELHI: One thousand and seventeen — that’s the number of bullets that were sprayed across the city in 310 different incidents of shooting in the first 10 months of the year. The shootings left at least 102 dead and 164 others injured.

On Saturday, bullets were fired outside a gymnasium in east Delhi’s Kalyanpuri, after the gym owner had a scuffle with a man in a case of road rage. With cases of shooting continuing to be reported every second day, experts say that to put an end to shootings, one has to first cut the “pilferage” of bullets and their supply to criminals.

Many Delhi Police officers, who did not wish to be named, said most criminals source bullets from arms dealers outside Delhi, who smuggle in these slugs. The officer said unlike the illegal manufacturing of guns, it is difficult to make a bullet in illegal factories. Manufacturing a cartridge is a complicated process using expensive machines and has to be done using a standard ordnance process.

“The bullets are pilfered by arms dealers. It doesn’t happen much in Delhi as the rules are strict here — each dealer has to give a record to the licensing branch about the number of bullets sold and the person to whom it has been sold. Our records show that many dealers outside Delhi misuse their arms licence and sell bullets to criminals. That is how bullets are smuggled into the national capital,” an officer said.

According to Delhi police crime data, between January 1 and September 30, police recovered 8,317 bullets, much higher than last year’s 6,421 bullets. During the same period, police also arrested 2,784 persons with illegal arms and ammunition.

Last y e a r , 1 , 5 9 3 p e r s o ns were arrested for the same offence.

According to police statements in cases in which arms smugglers were arrested, the men confessed that they bought the bullets from dealers at ₹250 per sl ug and sold i t f or anywhere between ₹450 and ₹800. Earlier this year, the Delhi Police special cell busted a major arms racket by arresting a former gun shop dealer from Firozabad, Uttar Pradesh.

Police in their statement said the man and his two associates smuggled in the bullets from Etah, Etawah and Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh.

“As per the preliminary interrogation, he has been found supplying over 3,500-4,500 cartridges every month to his contacts in Bihar, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and the National Capital Region,” police had then said.

Special commissioner of police (crime) Satish Golcha said proactive policing across the city has resulted in huge recoveries of firearms and bullets. “We busted a factory outside Delhi. Our units, crime branch and special cell, have unearthed illegal firearm factories in other states as well. The number in the last two years is much higher than previous years. We also used laws such as the MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) to curb organised crime,” he said.

Explaining the laws related to gun licensing and the loopholes therein, an officer at the Delhi Police’s licensing branch, who did not wish to be named, said there must be a change in the gun laws to stop the pilferage.

“With every gun licence, the person is allotted an annual quota of bullets. It could be 50 or 100 or 200, depending on

SATISH GOLCHA, special commissioner (crime) the discretion of the licensing authority. The person cannot buy bullets in bulk. The loophole in the law is that one does not have to give a record of the bullets used. The person can keep stocking bullets every year and then sell it to anyone else. The day it becomes compulsory to give a record of all bullets, shooting cases, too, will decrease,” the officer said.

Many Delhi Police officers say it is difficult to put a figure on the number of bullets that Delhi’s criminals may have stocked up.

Retired IPS officer Prakash Singh, who served as the director general of the Uttar Pradesh and the Assam police forces, said the city police’s priority must be to prevent the supply of bullets.

“If there are no bullets in the market, there will be no shootings, no matter how many guns are available with criminals,” Singh said.

Singh said in the 1960s and 1970s, the police force would keep a count of all bullets on a weekly basis, ensuring that there was no pilferage of the ammunition.

“But the same intensity of supervision does not exist anymore, allowing bullets to be sold by the police as well as the armed forces into the black market,” Prakash said.

Another senior retired IPS officer Vikram Singh, who served as the Uttar Pradesh director general, said the armed forces, the police, the licensed weapon dealers and t he l i censed weapon holders are collectively responsible for the pilferage of bullets.

“There have been instances wherein the police and the army have opened fire only on book. This is not specific to Delhi Police. Records of bullets fired during training and encounters are sometimes fudged and the ammunition s o l d a t a p r e mium. I n v i l l a g e s , even individual licence holders sell their extra bullets to criminals,” Singh said.

But the single largest source of the smuggled bullets is licensed arms dealers, says Singh.

In November 2017, the Delhi Police seized 1,310 bullets — the highest in a single operation in the national capital that year. It was allegedly being supplied by a licensed arms dealer from Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh.

The police had said the arms shop owner would fudge the registers to show illegal sales as legitimate. Since the process was manual, it was easy for the arms shop owner to manipulate records and sell these bullets to criminals, the police had said, adding that bullets which cost ₹150-200 were being sold for as high as five times that price.

The police said usually, multiplicity of channels make it difficult for investigators to know from where the cartridges were smuggled. In the 2017 case, there weren’t multiple channels in the sale, and so the police could identify the shop.

But Vikram Singh said it wasn’t often that the police managed to reach the source of the pilferage.

“How often do you hear the licence of an arms dealer getting cancelled?” he said.

“The noose has t o be t i ghtened around them. Every bullet needs to be accounted for. There have been cases of bullets used in shotguns and countrymade weapons manufactured by the same people who make the illegal weapons. They are manufacturing bullets used in 12 bore and 16 bore guns. But the good quality bullets entering the city are t hose t hat were pilf ered f rom source,” he said.

VIKRAM SINGH, former UP DGP

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Our units, crime branch and special cell, have unearthed illegal firearm factories in other states as well. The number in the last two years is much higher than previous years. We also used laws such as the MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) to curb organised crime.

There have been instances in which the police and the army have opened fire only on book. This is not specific to Delhi Police. Records of bullets fired during training and encounters are sometimes fudged and the ammunition sold at a premium. In villages, even licence holders sell bullets to criminals.