5000 cartridges, imported guns seized from fake licence accused in Gurgaon

Gurgaon police said the accused had managed to get 16 gun licenses registered using forged documents. Some of his other accomplices running the racket charged anywhere between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 5 lakh from persons seeking to obtain gun licenses

 
Gurgaon police is stunned by the recovery of a sizeable cache of arms and ammunition, including foreign made weapons, from the house of one of the accused involved in making fake arms licences on the basis of forged documents and getting them renewed in Gurgaon.

Gurgaon police raided the house of one of the accused, Manish Bhardwaj, in a Gurgaon village. The police recovered 5,000 cartridges of different bore rifles, 3 rifles and four sophisticated pistols of foreign make. (HT Representative Photo)

Two persons were found to be behind the fake arms license racket and as per the police, the duo managed to get 16 fake licenses registered. They said and it is likely that future raids will throw up more such fake licences .

On Monday morning, Gurgaon police raided the house of one of the accused, Manish Bhardwaj, in a Gurgaon village. Bhardwaj is currently reported to be at large. The police recovered 5,000 cartridges of different bore rifles, 3 rifles and four sophisticated pistols of foreign make.

Earlier, the police had arrested his accomplice Mohan Lal, who is on a six-day police remand and being interrogated. “We raided Manish’s house this morning and found a huge cache of arms and ammunition. Some documents pertaining to fake licences were also recovered,” Anil Kumar, ACP, Sadar, who is head of the special investigating team formed to probe this case, said.

Read I Police busts fake arms licences racket

Police said the accused had managed to get 16 gun licenses registered using forged documents. Some of his other accomplices running the racket charged anywhere between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 5 lakh from persons seeking to obtain gun licenses. Their role is also being probed by the investigation team, Kumar said.

The SIT also hasn’t ruled out the possible connivance of some police officers, as none of the fake licenses bore unique IDs as required under the Union home ministry guidelines. “The accused used to get the arms licenses renewed in Gurgaon, which enabled the authentication of the license document despite it being a fake one,” Kumar said.

The accused used to prepare fake arms licenses using addresses of Jammu and Kashmir, Nagaland, and Uttar Pradesh. Thereafter, the accused used to get the weapons re-registered on the basis of renewed licences issued by Gurgaon police.

The joint commissioner of police, Sibash Kabiraj, found that there was no unique identification number in any of the licences and that made him sense some foul play.