Seizure of firearms up by 200%: Police

Police said officers across all units, especially the crime and the special cell, have are working on such gangs.

Delhi Police Monday said it has, over the last two years, been tracing arms suppliers and breaking the arms supply chain, resulting in huge recovery of arms.

Delhi Police Monday said it has, over the last two years, been tracing arms suppliers and breaking the arms supply chain, resulting in huge recovery of arms.

Police said officers across all units, especially the crime and the special cell, have are working on such gangs. Sharing data of recovery of firearms, deputy commissioner of police (New Delhi) Madhur Verma, who is also the police spokesperson, said the seizure of firearms has seen an increase of over 200% since 2015.

On Monday, the Delhi Police special cell arrested an arms supplier from Kairana and seized 30 illegal pistols from him. Police said the accused Waisar, 29, bought the pistols from Khargone, Madhya Pradesh and Dhanbad, Jharkhand, and supplied them to criminals in NCR.

Meanwhile, a crime branch team, arrested a wanted criminal and recovered three countrymade pistols from him. The accused, Sunny alias Prem, had bought the pistols from Mewat.

“Through such huge seizures and arrest of main arms suppliers, we will break their chain,” Verma said.

“In the 2016 data of seizure until May 31, it shows that only 352 firearms were seized. It increased to 458 in 2017 and 736 in 2018. This year, the number has increased to 1,081. This is a priority for the Delhi Police,” Verma said.

On the recent spree of firing and murder across the capital, Verma said it would be wrong to look at these cases from only a specific time period.

“There may have been some incidents in the past few weeks, but if you look at the data over a period of time, the use of firearms in heinous crimes has reduced considerably. In 2016, there were 951 cases in which firearms were used. In 2017, it came down to 851 cases and last year, firearms were used only in 812 cases. We will bring the numbers further down this week,” Verma said.

The officer said police have identified many vulnerable stretches across the city, where they have put in extra surveillance. During a recent meeting, police commissioner Amulya Patnaik asked all district deputy commissioners of police to prepare a strategy on how to ensure that there is no crime. The officers have to submit the plan in the meeting next week.

According to the minutes of the meeting that was held on Saturday, Patnaik ordered the crime branch and special cell to focus on breaking arms supply chain in Delhi, via Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. The police chief also directed his officers to keep an eye on criminals released from jail and monitor their activities.