NEW DELHI: Delhi Police crime branch has busted a sophisticated arms trafficking syndicate spanning Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, arresting 10 key operatives and seizing 21 high-end foreign weapons. The arsenal of sophisticated weapons includes a Czech submachine gun, PX-5.7 and PX3 pistols, which are used by Special Forces, and 200 live cartridges. Other pistols include Taurus from Brazil, Walther (Germany), Stoeger (Turkiye), Star (Chinese) and Beretta (Italy). An investigation is now focusing on identifying the end receivers, with police suspecting that these weapons were ordered by notorious criminal gangs to carry out targeted killings across north India.
The probe has also exposed a smuggling route originating in Pakistan, moving through the porous Indo-Nepal border and terminating in the narrow lanes of Old Delhi. Deputy commissioner of police (crime branch) Sanjeev Yadav, who led the operation, said Old Delhi served as a critical distribution point for arming the gangs across Delhi-NCR and beyond. The operation has led to police stumbling upon a cross-border modus operandi followed by the network led by fugitive arms dealer Shahbaz Ansari, who runs a scrap-to-sniper logistics chain from abroad. According to the cops, pistols are broken into parts in Pakistan and shipped to West Asia. The dismantled weapons are then sent to Nepal as “metal scrap” to evade customs, where they are reassembled before being smuggled to India through porous international border points in places like Sonauli. The weapons are subsequently sent to arms traffickers in Delhi and other states by road. In the capital, densely populated areas are used to create hubs for safe transit and concealment zones for the arms. The module encrypts messaging apps and VoIP calls and frequently changes its SIM cards and mobile devices. All payments are made through hawala channels, the cops said. Police were on the trail of this gang for about two months with a team comprising inspectors Man Singh and Sundar Gautam and ACP Sanjay Nagpal conducting raids at around 70 places to trace the gang members using a multi-pronged approach of human intelligence and technical surveillance. According to DCP Yadav, the crackdown began on the night of March 13, when a trap was laid at Dariya Ganj. A man named Rahil (37), allegedly the module’s main Delhi operative and cousin of the kingpin, Ansari, was intercepted along with his brother Hasim (45) and an aide Saim (24). A search of Rahil’s scooty led to the recovery of a CZ shadow pistol, while preliminary questioning revealed that the trio had supplied nearly 75 foreign firearms to local gangs over the last nine months. Cops then nabbed Sonu Gupta (31), a key receiver with a long criminal record. Gupta fished out a pistol and cocked it at the police team, but was overpowered. Following Rahil’s interrogation, police arrested Ghanshyam Sharma in Shahdara and Waseem Malik in northeast Delhi, recovering pistols manufactured in Turkiye and Italy from them. The investigation then moved towards the upper tiers of the supply chain, resulting in the arrest of Nishant Arora, alias Noni — a bad character of Geeta Colony — and Nawab, a Bulandshahr-based associate who acted as a direct link to handlers in Nepal. To ensure that the network remained “dark”, the module employed Nauman, an Ajmeri Gate SIM vendor who provided the traffickers with hundreds of mobile connections registered on fake documents. These numbers were used exclusively for encrypted VoIP calls before the SIMs and handsets were systematically destroyed. On March 24, the cops cornered Naushad (37), a smuggler who used to personally transport arms consignments across the Nepal border, in Bulandshahr’s Sikandrabad. Naushad attempted to flee while brandishing a firearm, said joint commissioner of police Surender Kumar. ACP Nagpal bravely confronted Naushad and overpowered him after a brief fight. Naushad’s interrogation led to the recovery of the module’s “prized” weapon: a skorpion submachine gun along with 15 live cartridges.
