Ludhiana Police teams raid 16 gun houses

Nikhil Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, July 27

On suspicion that gun houses have been supplying bullets to gangsters and other notorious elements, the Ludhiana police have started tightening noose around the gun houses. The crime wing of the Ludhiana police made 16 special teams which conducted raids on 16 gun houses on Monday falling under the jurisdiction of the Police Commissionerate and seized their entire records.

The development came after the Punjab Police busted a racket in which a large number of illegal weapons, which were bought by gangsters from Madhya Pradesh, were recovered but bullets were bought illegally from gun houses.

The entire operation is being supervised by DCP (Crime) Simratpal Singh Dhindsa and assisted by ADCP (Crime) Rupinder Kaur Bhatti.

Talking to The Tribune, DCP Dhindsa said the police got a tip-off regarding gun house owners supplying bullets to anti-social elements. “On Monday, ACP and inspector rank officers were called without informing them the purpose. By forming 16 teams, each team was told to conduct surprise checking at each gun house. We have seized the entire records of the gun houses, including details of bullets sold to the licence owners. Now, we will verify each entry to find anomalies, if any,” he said.

Dhindsa said the 16 gun houses had weapons of over 1,000 licence holders and thousands of bullets were sold to valid gun licence holders as per the records.

”Sometimes, gun house owners sells bullets to civilians or anti-social elements at exorbitant prices and they put entries in the name of valid gun licence holders. We will approach every licence holder to expose the racket, if any, and the entire probe may take more than a week to reach any conclusion,” Dhindsa said.

There were 19 gun houses in Ludhiana of which three namely Punjab Arms Company, Civil Lines; Fauji Gun House, Bindraban road; and Grewal A/A Dealers, Ghumar Mandi, have applied for cancellation of their gun house licence. Other 16 operational gun houses where police conducted raids are Sherry Gun House, Toor Market, Dugri; Gurjot Gun House, Sherpur Kalan; Ashu Arms Company, Bharat Nagar chowk; Paul Gun House, Bhai Bala chowk; Uttam Gun House, Bharat Nagar chowk; MS Arms Company, Kitchlu Nagar; Imperial Arms Company, Nirankari Market; Bharat Gun House, Pakhowal Road; Verma Gun House, Bharat Nagar chowk; Doaba Gun House, Kochar Market; Akshit Gun House, Ghumar Mandi; Ludhiana Gun House, Model Town; Royal Gun House, Ghumar Mandi; Capital Gun House, Gurdev Nagar; The Gun Smith Gun House, Sarabha Nagar; and Shiv Shakti Gun House, Guru Nanak Pura.

Licence expired, gun houses still keeping weapons

As per the police, some gun houses are still keeping those weapons, licence of which have either been expired or have not been renewed by the holder. There is always a possibility that gun house owners may give such weapons on rent to criminal elements such as gangsters and after using the same, gangsters may hand over the weapon to the gun house. It is the duty of the gun house owner that if a weapon holder’s licence has expired, they should inform the police station concerned for further proceedings.