Father-son held with huge cache of ammunition in south Delhi

NEW DELHI: The Special Cell has nabbed a father-son duo and their accomplice with a huge cache of ammunition stolen from ordnance factories. The ammo was being supplied to criminals across Delhi. Cops found 1,250 rounds of 7.65mm and .315bore cartridges packed in sealed boxes from their vehicles when they intercepted them near Ashram flyover in south Delhi. The duo owned an arms shop in UP, whose licence was revoked, but they were using their contacts to procure ammunition through other dealers.
The men were identified as Praveen and Prateek Verma and Sonu Singh, DCP (Special Cell) Manishi Chandra said.
Cops said that even though gunrunners in MP and Meerut could produce high-quality weapons used to fire these cartridges, they couldn’t produce the ammunition as it was a complicated process. Each component of a cartridge is manufactured separately using expensive machines before being finally assembled.
Praveen told cops that he used to run an arms and ammunition shop in Mainpuri, but his licence was cancelled in 2007 after a criminal case was registered against him. He set up a shop to sell artificial jewellery, but lost interest as he was still earning a huge sum by pilfering ammunition. He bought several cars for transporting these cartridges to Rajasthan, Bihar, west UP , MP and other states. He engaged his elder son, Prateek, an electrical engineer, into the “trade”. They enjoyed a margin of Rs 200-400 per cartridge sold to criminals. The gang supplied over 4,000 cartridges per month, police said.
Sonu, who also had a criminal record, acted as courier for the gang. Cops are trying to ascertain the identity of accomplices in ordnance factories that were helping the gang pilfer the ammunition.