Warangal: Gang smuggling arms busted, 6 held

WARANGAL: The Warangal commissionerate police on Thursday arrested six persons linked to a gang smuggling guns. The police also seized two 9mm pistols and ammunition.

The suspects were identified as Jannu Koti, Mudurukolla Santhosh, Vayinala Ravi, and Nimmanikonda Mallikarjun.

Police commissioner V. Ravinder said, “The prime accused, Jannu Koti is a CPI (ML) New Democracy sympathiser and another accused Vayinala Ravi previously worked with the praja pratigatana party. To earn easy money the duo used to purchase guns from other states and sell them at a higher price.”

Abbarla Rajaiah and Mogili Pratap Reddy who previously worked with the New Democracy wanted guns to threaten people and extort money from them. They approached Jannu Koti and finalised a deal for the supply of arms. Jannu Koti, Vayinala Ravi along with Santhosh purchased a 9 mm pistol and two rounds of ammunition from Madhya Pradesh. They were to hand over the ammunition near a teak plantation on the outskirts of Girnibavi village in Duggondi mandal of Warangal Rural district.

The taskforce ACP received information regarding the movement of the gang and directed inspectors David Raj and L. Ramesh Kumar along with Duggondi sub-inspector Sambamurthy, who took them into custody. Based on the information given by the gang, Mallikarjun was also arrested and a pistol and ammunition recovered from him. Mr Ravinder said, “We are trying to extract more information in regards to the arm smuggling taking place.”

The commissioner appreciated East zone DCP Nagaraju, taskforce ACP Chakravarthi, Narsampet ACP Sunitha Mohan, inspectors Ramesh Kumar, Narsampet Rural inspector Satish Babu, Geesugonda inspector Sanjeeva Rao, Taskforce head constable Shyam Sunder, constables Srinu, Ali, Jampaiah, Sudhakar, Chandrashekar for effectively busting the racket.