Police have seized 53 illegal weapons, 17 fake firearms licenses besides several documents including duplicate NOCs for purchasing weapons and 17 fake stamps of District Magistrates of various districts in Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.
Addressing the media here, Paramraj Singh Umranangal Inspector General (Bhatinda Zone) today said police had busted an inter-state arms smuggling racket in March during which Arwinder Singh, Manager of Bhajan Gun House, Guruharsahai was arrested along with illegal arms and ammunition.
Upon further investigations, few more arms dealers including Harbhajan Lal (owner of Bhajan Gun House, Guruharsahai), Gurbachan Singh (owner of Kotkapura Gun House, Kotkapura) and Varinder Singh (Owner of Fauji Gun House, Abohar) were arrested.
The IG said that these gun house owners had links with several arms dealers in UP and other states who were involved in smuggling of illegal arms and ammunition.
He said that later a special police team was constituted under Ferozepur SSP Hardyal Singh Mann to raid various suspected hideouts of illegal arms smugglers in UP, Haryana and Rajasthan.
Subsequently, police arrested one Dinesh Palta who worked in District Courts Ferozepur as typist.
Palta had been dealing in cases related to renewal of arms licenses, obtaining NOCs, placing orders for ordinance revolvers among several other criminal activities.
IG said that during investigations it came to fore that Dinesh along with one Sant Ram with connivance of gun dealer Harbhajan Lal and his son Kapil Dev had made several fake arms licenses of criminals belonging to Bagpat, Ghaziabad, Meerut in UP besides Delhi and Haryana.
He said that Dinesh Palta and Sant Ram charged upto Rs 60,000 per license from their customers.
Police have seized 17 fake stamps of District Magistrates of different states besides 16 fake arms licenses and many blank documents/forms from their custody, he said.
Further, six teams under DSP Sulakhan Singh, Inspector Kikkar Singh and Sub-Inspector Shinder Singh were set up which camped at Baghpat and other locations for several days to bust the entire nexus.