55 pistols, 2 submachine guns seized in Amritsar in past one month

In the past month, the police commissionerate here has busted as many as eight cross-border arms and drugs trafficking modules, leading to the confiscation of as many as 55 pistols, two sub-machine guns, apart from over 33 kg heroin.

On Wednesday, the Amritsar Police arrested two alleged members of an illegal weapons supply network, including the owner of a de-addiction centre, and seized seven sophisticated pistols and 40 cartridges from them. The seized cache includes one 9mm Glock pistol, one .30-bore Tisas Turkiye pistol, one specially modified .30-bore pistol and four .30-bore pistols, besides 40 cartridges.

Those arrested were identified as Surjit Singh (33), a resident of Sur Singh village in Tarn Taran, and Gulbagh Singh (26), who runs a de-addiction centre on Bhai Manj Singh Road in Sultanwind here.

As per preliminary investigations, the accused were in contact with foreign-based smugglers through social media applications and were receiving consignments of illegal weapons through cross-border channels.

Police Commissioner (CP), Amritsar, Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said police teams acted on specific intelligence and initially seized two pistols from the accused. During sustained interrogation and based on their disclosure statements, five more weapons were seized, taking the total seizure to seven pistols. He said the drone drops were reported from the Tarn Taran border belt.

Police verification has revealed that Surjit was already wanted in a commercial quantity narcotics case registered at the Bhikhiwind police station in Tarn Taran, indicating his alleged links with organised crime.

Another police official wishing anonymity said that Punjab’s border with Pakistan had been serving as a transit point for drugs and weapons. The weapons smuggled from the neighbouring nation were further transported to other parts of the country.

Earlier, the police had also arrested a resident of Madhya Pradesh who had arrived near the international border for getting a pistol smuggled from Pakistan.