JCT Mills Chairman and Managing Director Samir Thapar and his 15 friends were arrested with prohibited arms and ammunition from Kotdwar in Uttarakhand on Saturday night.
The Uttarakhand Police received information about some anti-social elements, wearing army like uniform entering the protected area of the Lansdowne Forest Division and conducted search operation.
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The textile industry tycoon was arrested with ten Delhi, two Punjab, two Haryana and one Chandigarh friends.
The group members were arrested under Arm’s Act and Forest Trespassing Act and their eight vehicles were seized.
A 300 bore German rifle with 23 live cartridges, 171 liquor bottles of different brand and packaged meat were recovered from the group.
Thapar and his friends arrived in Uttarakhand for celebrating their new year bash, but police spoiled their party. The group was nabbed for illegally camping inside protected area without obtaining tenting permission from the forest department- carrying illegal rifle, liquor and setting fire inside protected area.
Carrying imported rifle without license could land Thapar and friends in big trouble. The accused could face 5-10 year jail term and a fine for carrying prohibited arms and ammunition.
Pauri Senior Superintendent of Police Mukhtar Mosin said, “After receiving tip-off from informer a team was dispatched to Kolhuchaur. The Police asked for tenting license, but the group failed to provide it. The cops searched the guest house and recovered 171 bottles of liquor, a German 300 bore rifle and 23 live cartridges. Besides this 15 live cartridges (375 bore) were recovered from Arif Hussain- another member of the group.”
Thapar and his friends were enjoying camp fire when the cops reached the spot. The group failed to produce license of the gun, liquor license and camping permission.
Packaged meat was also recovered and police is sending the nabbed material for lab test.
The arrested include Thapar, Rohit Daggar, Raj Kamal, Sunil Kumar, Rahul Rao, Narendra Anand, Manoj Sheghal, Siddharth Sharma, Arif Hussain, Rajiv Khanna (all from Delhi), Randeep, Swarndeep (both from Haryana), Mohinder, Rajiv Jain (from Punjab) and Romi Bhatt from Chandigarh.
The group was only successful in producing the forest guest house booking slip by one Mohinder Singh.
The police has booked the group under section 26 (b,c,d) of the Indian Forest Act, section 52 of the Indian Forest Act, section 25 & 35 of the Arms Act and section 60 of the Indian Excise Act.
