After a huge haul of illegal firearms, the UP Special Task Force (STF) claimed to have busted an inter-state firearms supply racket in the state.
Sleuths arrested five members the gang in Hardoi district and recovered 23 .32 bore pistols and 43 magazines of the same bore from their possession.
Senior superintendent of police (STF) Rajeev Narain Mishra said those arrested were identified as Saurabh Yadav, Kehar Singh Yadav, Saddam Hussain, Gaurav Mishra – all residents of Azamgarh and Akash Dabar of Madhya Pradesh. They were nabbed from outside the Sandila railway station in Hardoi on Monday night.
The arrests were made on a specific tip-off about a big arms deal to be executed in Hardoi, he said.
STF sub-inspector MK Pandey said the pistols recovered were made at an illegal arms manufacturing unit in Madhya Pradesh’s Khandwa and its adjoining areas. He said Akash Dabar, who is from Madhya Pradesh’s Badwani, brought the pistols with the help of his associates to supply them to different gangs in Uttar Pradesh.
He said the gang even supplied illegally manufactured pistols to Haryana, Mumbai and Bihar. These firearms were being sold at Rs 20-25,000 each.
{{/usCountry}}He said the gang even supplied illegally manufactured pistols to Haryana, Mumbai and Bihar. These firearms were being sold at Rs 20-25,000 each.
{{/usCountry}}Pandey said the accused were being quizzed about other people associated with the gang, those involved in the supply chain and the buyers of illegal pistols. The STF have seized six mobile phones from the arrested persons and their details were being scanned to extract more information about the gang’s network across different states, he added.