With the arrest of a 21-year-old man and recovery of 24 pistols with engraved texts like ‘Made in England’ and ‘Made in USA’, the Special Cell of Delhi Police claimed to have busted an inter-state firearm syndicate on Thursday.
The Madhya Pradesh-based syndicate was a supplier in regions that include Delhi-NCR and Mewat region in Haryana. The alleged syndicate member arrested on May 12 by the Special Cell team was identified as Naim, who is from Mathura, Uttar Pradesh.
Based on a tip-off, the police laid a trap near Gurudwara Bala Sahib in Sidhartha Extension on Ring Road and Naim was nabbed when he approached the spot in a truck, from which the semi-automatic firearms were recovered, said Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell).
According to the police, a team was constructed by the Special Cell around a year ago to keep a tab over such syndicates.
The team travelled across Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh to collect information regarding the modus operandi and area of operation of the several gangs involved in gun-running. Since then, the team has arrested 45 alleged gun-runners and busted several gangs.
“However, recently we observed that there has been a lull in such activities for quite some time and that the old methods were not working anymore. However, the use of such weapons is continuing in Delhi and NCR.
This compelled the team to re-analyze the whole strategy and to work hard to find out the possible reason behind it,” said Yadav.
After several months of efforts, it was learnt that suppliers and receivers had changed their mode of supply of these weapons. They joined hands with some transporters/truck drivers of Maharastra-Delhi highway, who ply their trucks via Dhar in Madhya Pradesh, he added.