Five gun peddlers arrested in Delhi

New Delhi: Five major peddlers of Munger-made illicit firearms were arrested in separate operations by the Delhi Police in the past one week which also saw recovery of 17 sophisticated pistols from them.

Special Cell of the Delhi Police, which seized 54 high- quality weapons in 2012, made the fresh arrests and seizures based on specific tip-off. These weapons which are made in Munger in Bihar are smuggled into Delhi and distributed among criminals who commit heinous crimes, police said today. In the first operation on February 2, Mohd Afzal and Mohd Rizwan were arrested near the Sarai Kale Khan, ISBT when they had come there to supply illegal pistols of 0.32 bore to one Billal. "The interrogation of Mohd Afzal revealed the deep rooted nexus between several big scale manufacturers and suppliers of these high quality firearms based in Munger and several gun running cartels based in western Uttar Pradesh," Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, DCP, Special Cell, said. Afzal also revealed that his main supplier was one Rashid Pehalwan from Munger. Yesterday, police learnt that some persons belonging to Lavad Village of Meerut district would be coming in a car towards Anand Vihar-Ghazipur Road area to deliver a massive consignment of illicit firearms to a big retailer. "At about 5 PM, a car was spotted going towards Anand Vihar. Upon confirmation from the informer, the car was tactfully cornered and the occupants were directed to come out and reveal their identities. The car was found carrying three persons," he said. During preliminary interrogation, the main accused revealed that he is the younger brother of one Ismail (name changed), a hard core criminal of Meerut area who was killed in a police encounter over a decade ago. The main accused has been involved in three cases and was arrested in 2009 in the Arms Act case and while he was lodged in jail for about 18 months, he made friends with the second accused who introduced him to the third person. PTI