The Punjab Police has busted an inter-state illegal weapon smuggling module with the arrest of two Madhya Pradesh (MP) based arms suppliers involved in large-scale illegal manufacturing and supply of weapons from MP into Punjab as well as other states.
The accused persons were apprehended from Madhya Pradesh by the team of Counter Intelligence (CI) Jalandhar, the Director General of Police (DGP), Punjab, Gaurav Yadav said on Saturday.
The arrested persons have been identified as Harpal Singh of village Signoor in district Khargone and Kishore Singh Rathore of village Balwari at district Bharwani of MP. The police teams have also recovered 17 pistols of .32 bore along with 35 magazines, from their possession.
“The preliminary investigations revealed that these weapons were meant to be supplied to criminal gangs associated with Jaggu Bhagwanpuria and Ravi Balachauria,” the DGP said.
The development came after the Counter Intelligence unit arrested a person identified as Lovedeep alias Love from Maqsudan-Bidhipur Road in Jalandhar, after recovering one pistol along with two cartridges from his possession.
The DGP said that following the backward and forward linkages during the investigation of backward and forward linkages, it has come to the fore that the recovered weapon was part of a consignment, supplied by inter-state weapon manufacturers and suppliers, suspected to be based in MP’s Khargone and Bharwani districts.
Following these inputs, a team of CI Jalandhar went to MP on Tuesday and managed to trace out and arrest both the accused arms suppliers, he added.
AIG Counter Intelligence Jalandhar Navjot Singh Mahal said that the operation is still going on and there is a high possibility of more recovery of arms and ammunition.