A Patna police constable was arrested for his alleged involvement in smuggling of AK-47 semi automatic rifles from the central ordnance depot (COD) at Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, the police said on Thursday.
Constable Dharmaveer Kumar was picked up from new police lines in Patna on Tuesday night and taken to Munger for interrogation. Munger police later formally arrested him in connection with illegal arms smuggling.
The name of Dharmaveer, said to be a native of Khagaria district, surfaced during interrogation of Mohammad Rizwan, who was taken on a four-day police remand for interrogation in the illegal arms racket case lodged with the Mufassil police station in Munger district.
Apart from Dharmaveer, another member of the racket, Surendra Sharma, was nabbed from Munger on Wednesday. Both Rizwan and Sharma admitted that they had sold four AK-47s to Dharmaveer, who had unsuccessfully contested elections to the Bihar Police Men’s Association.
Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Manu Maharaaj said on Thursday that a police team led by Munger additional superintendent of police (operation) Rana Navin visited the police lines in Patna and took Dharmaveer into custody. “We cooperated with the Munger police team,” Maharaaj said.
Manzar Alam said Manjeet was arrested from a private lodge at Dujra under the jurisdiction of Buddha Colony police station in Patna and subsequently taken to Munger. Manzar is alleged to have supplied AK-47s to different criminal gangs and the Naxal outfits operating in Bihar and Jharkhand.
Meanwhile, a joint Delhi and Munger police team raided a village in Kasim Bazar area and recovered a regular pistol stolen from New Delhi. The pistol was sold to a resident, who was arrested from Basudevpur on Wednesday.
Additional SP (operation) Rana Navin said the Delhi police left with the arrested arms dealers and the weapon. Last week, all 11 accused, including four arrested from Madhya Pradesh in the AK-47 racket, were produced in a special NIA court in Patna. On October 5, the NIA took over investigation of one of six cases related to smuggling of AK-47s from Jabalpur based COD.
Authoritative sources said Munger police have obtained a list of VIP beneficiaries, including politicians and ganglords, who had purchased the semi-automatic weapons from arms smugglers of Munger. “Since the investigation is underway, it will not be prudent to share more information,” acting superintendent of police of Munger Babu Ram said.
He, however, admitted that raids were conducted in the riverine belt of the Ganga to recover more AK-47s smuggled from the Jabalpur COD. Till date 20 AK-47s have been seized from different localities of Munger. Of them, 12 AK-47s were recovered from a well at Mirzapur Bardhe village under the jurisdiction of Muffasil police station in Munger.
