Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad   

A cracker of a fact: 150 firearms sold in city untraceable

By Marri Ramu

HYDERABAD July 24. Shocking, but true. More than 150 firearms, believed to have been bought with fake gun licences from city-based arms dealers, are in the hands of persons who cannot be traced.

Even the police do not know where and in whose hands these weapons are. They were apparently bought with fake gun licences in the last four years by natives of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh who had reportedly settled down in the city as private watchmen and security guards.

These facts came to light during enquiries after the Police Commissioner's Task Force busted a Nagaland-based fake gun licence racket with the arrest of 16 persons and seizure of 16 guns. Interestingly, the Langerhouz police, who have been asked to investigate the racket, are not aware of these details.

Four months after the racket was unearthed, all the police could find out was that some of the licences were fake. "The authorities of Mann district in Nagaland confirmed that six of the 16 licences were fake,'' the Asifnagar ACP, Satyanarayana, said. On the remaining licences, he said they contained the seals of Dimapur District Magistrate of Nagaland. "We have not received any response from them despite several reminders,'' he said. All these licences come under the `all-India category' and can be issued only by the Union Home Ministry or the State Home Department.

How did State Home Department and Ranga Reddy Collectorate employees allow re-registration of five licences, issued by the district authorities, contrary to rules? "I cannot answer that because four of these re-registered licences were issued by the Dimapur authorities who are not clarifying whether they are fake or not,'' replied Mr. Satyanarayana.

The West Zone DCP, Anjana Sinha, said she would immediately write a letter to the Chief Secretary to ascertain the facts. Even as the Langerhouz police are struggling to verify the genuineness of the licences, the racket has ramifications not only in Hyderabad but all over the country as well.

The figure of 150 firearms (all having the Nagaland authorities' stamps) was arrived at after verifying with arms sellers of the city. There is every possibility of the figure going up as weapons can be purchased with similar fake licences either in Ranga Reddy district or any other part of the State and the country.

Task Force officials were surprised to find that all 16 persons arrested in connection with the racket were not familiar with the operation. Though Ramu Sharma of Bihar, Prahlad Gupta and Pappu Mishra of Nagaland were identified as kingpins of the racket, the police have failed to find out their whereabouts thus far. ``This racket may have implications across the country and investigation of the case should be entrusted to a bigger agency like the CID,'' a senior police officer observed.

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