Hoshiarpur: Interstate arms smuggling racket busted; five arrested

Hoshiarpur, July 30

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The Hoshiarpur police have busted a gang of interstate arms smugglers and arrested five persons, including two from Uttar Pradesh and one from Haryana.

The police have also recovered a total of 10 pistols, bullets and five spare magazines from the five accused.

At a press conference held here on Friday evening, SSP Navjot Singh Mahal said in an operation conducted under the supervision of Garhshankar ASP Tushar Gupta, a massive network of arms smuggling with its roots in Uttar Pradesh was busted.

The arrests were made on the information given by two accused — Sukhpal Singh and Amrinder Singh of Ropar’s Anandpur Sahib — nabbed by the Garhshankar police on July 26. Two pistols and six live rounds were recovered from the duo. During the preliminary probe, the duo disclosed that they had brought these pistols from one Mohd Shamshad Ansari of Meerut in Uttar Pradesh. Following this information, a team led by ASP Tushar Gupta along with Inspector Shiv Kumar, CIA staff in charge, arrested Ansari from Meerut and recovered five pistols of .32 bore with 10 live rounds and five spare magazines.

The SSP said following Ansari’s inputs, Ashwani Kumar, Khidrapur village sarpanch in Pehowa of Kurukshetra (Haryana), and Mohammad Asif of Sahibwala in Ghaziabad (UP) were also arrested on Friday. Two pistols of 9 mm, 1 pistol of .30 bore and 10 live rounds were recovered.

He said Ashwani disclosed that he had supplied nine pistols to gangsters in Punjab in the preceding months.“Now, we are trying to find out the persons to whom the arms were supplied.” —OC