Trio of arms suppliers held, 25 guns, 800 cartridges seized

NEW DELHI: In a major breakthrough, Delhi Police has busted a gang of arms peddlers who devised a novel method to dodge cops by carrying weapons inside in the boot of the car, where the stepney is kept.

Police on Wednesday said in addition to arresting the three accused, they also seized 25 semi-automatic pistols, a star pistol, 800 live cartridges along with 16 magazines. Cops also recovered a sum of Rs one lakh from the arrested men.

The three men arrested men, involved in arms peddling, have been identified as are Salim Ahmed alias Pistol, Naseem Ahmad and Mohammad Faizan.

"On sustained interrogation, Salim disclosed that he has been in the world of crime for more than 20 years and was supplying arms for some years. He was fond of carrying weapons and criminals from various parts of western Uttar Pradesh brought illegal weapons to him for repair. During travel, he hid the weapons in the trunk of vehicles," said DCP (North East) Atul Kumar.

Fourty-seven year old Salim, the prime accused, as well as the other two men are residents of Jafrabad in Delhi.

For the last several months, the team of Anti-Auto Theft Squad (AATS) of North East Delhi Police was working to trace the absconding accused, who are wanted gangsters and supplied supplied sophisticated firearms to criminals in Delhi-NCR.

On June 23, the AATS police received secret information about the presence of illegal arms in a car.

Meanwhile, an informer met Inspector Vinay and HC Anil and informed them that the weapons are stored in one black colour Fortuner car going towards Delhi from Sanauli Border area.

Immediately, the police team sprang into action and after untiring efforts, the suspected Fortuner car was spotted in New Usman Pur area. A raid was conducted and all three men have been arrested.

The accused have FIR registered in Seelampur, Jafrabad, Krishna Nagar, Chandni Chowk and Kashmere Gate.