Jharkhand ATS nabs BSF jawan, 4 others for illegal arms sale

RANCHI: Barely two weeks after a CRPF jawan and two others were arrested for supplying arms and ammunition to Maoists and criminal organisations, the Jharkhand anti-terrorism squad has arrested a BSF havildar and a retired employee of the paramilitary force along with three others for the same crime.
The arrested BSF havildar is identified as Kartik Behra and the retired employee as Arun Kumar Singh.They were arrested along with Kumar Gurlal Ochware, Shivlal Dhawal Singh and Hirla Guman Singh for supplying arms and ammunition to extremist organisations and criminal gangs across the country.
Highlighting the arrests as an achievement of the ATS, IG (operations) Amol Homkar said on Thursday, “The ATS has arrested as many as nine persons during raids carried out in Jharkhand, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Punjab during the past month. A large number of arms and ammunition have been recovered. It is a big success of the ATS team.”
He said the raids were conducted under the direction of DGP Neeraj Sinha.
Police said Arun was arrested with the help of the Bihar special task force from Sonepur on November 17 and based on his information, 909 rounds of ammunition were recovered. Police have taken him on remand and are interrogating him further.
During the investigation, the ATS learnt about the involvement of Kartik, a native of Saraikela Kharsawan, who was posted in the 116th Battalion of BSF and posted at Ferozpur in Punjab. Police arrested Kartik and searched the campus with BSF officials leading to the recovery of 8,304 cartridges, 21 magazines, empty cartridges, detonators, magazines and other material.
Kartik confessed to supplying arms and ammunition to Arun with the help of some of his colleagues. Further investigation is going on to ascertain the involvement of other persons.
The ATS also carried out raids in Burhanpur district of Madhya Pradesh and Buldhana district in Maharashtra from where Gurlal, Shivlal and Hirla were arrested. A total of 14 pistols, 21 magazines, a bike and two mobile phones were recovered from them. All three are natives of Burhanpur district.
ATS SP Prashant Anand said, “All accused were produced before the local courts and brought to Jharkhand on transit remand.”
Earlier on November 16 and 17, the ATS had arrested three accused persons, CRPF jawan Avinash Kumar, who was posted in the 182nd Battalion and two others identified as Rishi Kumar and Pankaj Kumar Singh during raids carried out in Jharkhand and Bihar.
The accused had supplied arms and ammunition to CPI (Maoist) and the Aman Sao gang. A total of 450 rounds of 5.56 mm ammunition were seized in the operation. The ATS had also arrested one Kamendra Singh from Dhanbad in connection with the arms supply.