Hyderabad, February 11: Eight persons from Uttar Pradesh, who had been working as gunmen to influential persons, including some factionists and those involved in land settlements, were nabbed on Wednesday. Five revolvers, three pistols, 81 live rounds of ammunition and eight gun licences were recovered from them. They had not registered their weapons with the local police.
The eight – Uday Raj Singh, Raj Kumar, Chabinath Mishra, Anil Kumar Roy, Sugreev Singh, Ambikesh Prasad Pandey, Jay Shanker Yadav and Mukesh Kumar Vishwakarma – hailing from various parts of UP, were caught from a guest house at Madhapur.
Three local persons, MK Chowdhary, Murali Krishna and Bhanu Kiran, who brought them to the city and were utilising their services are absconding.
“The eight procured individual licences from different courts in UP to possess .32 bore pistols and revolvers with live ammunition for self-protection,” Task Force DCP VB Kamalasan Reddy said.
They purchased the weapons from UP and West Bengal.
MK Chowdhary, who runs the Bharath Security Services, called them to the city in December last to work as security guards and lodged them in a guest house at Madhapur.
Chowdhary, with the help of Murali Krishna, attached them to one Bhanu Kiran of Ananthapur who supplied them as gunmen to acquaintances. Dressed in safari suits and wielding weapons, they accompanied their employers posing like government security personnel.
“Though they have licences, they did not register them with the local police authorities on their arrival in the city with firearms thus violating the provisions of the Gun Licence and Arms Act,” the DCP said.
Chowdhary, Murali Krishna and Bhanu Kiran abetted the private guards to violate the law. “Their weapons could be countrymade firearms purchased from unauthorised sources. The genuineness of the licences and the weapons is also being verified,’’ Kamalasan Reddy added.
Police said the private security personnel were being utilised to provide security cover to unscrupulous elements. “With the help of these armed guards, land-grabbers and faction leaders have been resorting to illegal activities in the city,’’ a police official said.
The eight were handed over to the Banjara Hills police for further action.
2 friends robbed in same way at different places
Strange coincidence or perfect planning? Two friends, also partners in chitfund business, were relieved of Rs 3.65 lakh in exactly the same fashion at Alwal within a gap of few minutes on Wednesday.
Unidentified miscreants stole cash from the boot of their respective scooters at different places while they were returning home from a bank.
The victims, M Sanjeeva Naidu of Temple Alwal and S Krishna Reddy of Kavkur village, went to the Corporation Bank at Alwal in the morning to deposit money. After discussing with the bank staff they came out without depositing the cash. They put the money in their scooters and left in different routes, police said. Naidu stopped at a bangle store on the way and went inside.
He returned to find the scooter keys missing.
He had to push the vehicle all the way home and on reaching there he found the Rs 3 lakh he kept in the boot missing.
Reddy stopped at a meat shop where an unidentified person broke the boot of his vehicle and fled with the Rs 65,000 in it.
Police suspect the miscreants might have followed the duo from the bank and struck when they left the scooters on the roadside.
——-Agencies