Gurugram police bust illegal arms factory hidden in MP forest

Three suspects were arrested after investigators traced the network from a weapons recovery made near Sector-15 in Gurugram last month.

A crime branch team of Gurugram police raided an illegal firearms manufacturing unit hidden in the jungles of the Vindhyachal range at Singhana village in Madhya Pradesh’s Dhar district, busting an alleged arms manufacturing and supply network, officials said on Saturday.

Police seized machinery, barrels and fabrication tools used to make country-made pistols during a raid in Dhar district. (File photo)

Manual machinery, tools, components and equipment used to fabricate breech-load and semi-automatic country-made pistols, including barrels, were seized during the Friday operation.

Naveen Sharma, ACP (crime), said three people — the alleged manufacturer, a suspected smuggler and an alleged purchaser — were arrested. “The manufacturer was running the illegal factory on the hills of Vindhyachal for the last 30 years even after being arrested periodically. The second accused acted as a smuggler while the third was a purchaser,” Sharma said.

The case stemmed from the arrest of the alleged purchaser on May 29 with three semi-automatic country-made pistols near 32nd Avenue Milestone in Sector-15. A case under the Arms Act was registered at Civil Lines police station.

“He was taken on remand when he spilt the beans about the other accused,” Sharma said. The alleged manufacturer, produced before a Gurugram court on Wednesday, confessed to manufacturing the seized pistols.

Fourteen criminal cases related to illegal firearm manufacturing and smuggling are already registered against the alleged manufacturer across Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Delhi.