Gun found in BMW at airport car park

MUMBAI: A Pune resident was arrested by the Airport police on Sunday after they found an unlicensed 7.65 caliber pistol, encrypted as made in the USA, in his BMW car parked in the multi-level car parking near the domestic airport. The car had no license plates, the police said.

The arrested accused, the owner of the vehicle, was identified as Tushar Kale, 41, a real estate broker. He told the police he had come to the city along with a friend for the weekend. They had gone to a club in a nearby five-star hotel whose valet had come to park the vehicle around 3 am on Sunday.

“Security personnel at the parking lot were suspicious of the vehicle as it did not have either of the license plates, both in the front and the back. They inspected the vehicle and found the pistol in the cup holder of the driver’s armrest,” said an official from airport police.

The valet was detained and questioned first, but afterward the police asked him to identify and bring the vehicle’s owner. Meanwhile, they closely inspected the pistol. It was found to be a 7.65 caliber, made in the USA with five live cartridges of 77.65 mm in it. The pistol was seized by the police and Kale was booked and later arrested under the Arms Act for the illegal possession of a firearm.

On Sunday morning, several senior IPS officers and the crime branch officials visited the Airport police station after learning that they had caught a man with an unlicensed 7.65 caliber revolver and five live rounds in Mumbai’s domestic airport parking suspecting a connection to the gun used in the recent shooting at Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s residence early morning. However, during the probe, the Airport police and other officials found out that the arrested person hails from Pune.

A police officer at the Airport police station stated that Kale during interrogation said that he came to Mumbai along with his friend for a one-day tour of the city. “Kale was carrying a few clothes in a tourist bag which also contained ₹38,000 cash. He claimed that he had purchased the pistol from a UP man and had kept it in the car to show off to his friends in Pune. He claimed that he had purchased the car recently and had got the registration number and was waiting to get the number plate with a fancy number,” said the officer.