Visakhapatnam: The city police arrested an eight-member gang — four hailing from Bihar — and recovered a huge cache of weapons here on Tuesday. This was the second incident in this month, as the police arrested an inter-state gang in possession of semi-automatic country-made pistols.
The arrested were Karanam Ravindra Banu a native of Padmapuram, Srikakulam, and an ex-serviceman D. Raju, A. Manikanta, D. Appa Rao alias Babji, all natives of Rolugunta mandal in Visakhapatnam district, and Mukesh Kumar, Mo-hammed Sharuk, Ramn-ath Prasad and Bhola Sa-nkar Gupta from Bihar.
Four country-made semi-automatic .32 pistols and 50 rounds of .32 calibre and 8 magazine clips were seized from them. The men were arrested by a Task Force team led by ACP I. Chittibabu.
In the earlier incident on March 9, the police arrested two members of an 8-member Bihar gang and seized from them five semi-automatic .32 pistols, one local-make tapancha, 80 rounds of .32 and 6 rounds of 9mm.
Unlike the Bihar gang that was busted on March 9, and who intended to loot finance companies such as Mannpuram and Muthoot, this gang was involved in ganja smuggling.
Deputy commissioner of police Naveen Gulati said D. Raju, the main kingpin, is a noted ganja smuggler from Narsipat-nam and Rolugunta ar-eas. He met Karananm Ravindra Babu who, aft-er retiring from Indian Army, took to ganja smuggling in the central jail in October last year, as both were serving sentences under NDPS Act.
“They bonded well, and also met the other six accused in the central jail, who were also serving sentences under NDPS Act for ganja smuggling. In the jail itself, they formed a gang and decided to dominate the ganja smuggling operations by procuring arms with the help of Mukesh Kumar, who had a good knowledge of the illegal arms bazaar in Bihar,” said Naveen.
After coming out on bail, Raju sent Mukesh and Ravindra to Bihar for procuring arms and gave them about Rs. 4 lakh.
Ravindra Babu accompanied Mukesh to a village in Arrah district of Bihar and procured four country-made butt-loaded semi-automatic pistols for Rs. 30,000 each, 8 magazine clips and 50 rounds for Rs. 350 per round.
