Arms dealer who supplied weapons to kill Kashmiri Pandit social activist held

New Delhi, Jan 21 (IANS) The Special Cell of Delhi Police has arrested a wanted arms dealer who supplied weapons to the conspirators who plotted to kill a Delhi-based Kashmiri Pandit social activist, an official said here on Friday.

According to the Special Cell, the accused, identified as Hazi Shamim alias Shamim Pistol, is a notorious illegal arms supplier and has been supplying arms for more than 15 years. He was first arrested with illegal arms in 2007. He deals in sophisticated arms including foreign made weapons.

The case of conspiracy to kill the Kashmiri social activist dates back to February, 2021, when two persons namely Sukhwinder and Lakhan Rajput were arrested and during interrogation, they had revealed that they had come to Delhi to kill a Kashmiri social activist, who is vocal about the issues of Kashmiri Pandits.

In the past one year, the Special Cell has arrested four people identified as Mohit alias Prince alias Tooti, Jagdeep alias Kaka, Rohit Chaudhary and Hazi Shamim in this case.

Furnishing details about the conspiracy, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Pramod Singh Kushwah said the accused Rohit Chaudhary is a resident of Manglora Karnal in Haryana.

Rohit's brother Rahul was a constable in the Indian Army and an expert in drone handling. He was arrested by the Punjab Police and lodged in jail for his role in drug smuggling from Pakistan through drones. When Rahul was in jail, Rohit received some calls from Pakistan; these Pakistani contacts assured him to provide all possible assistance for the release of his brother.

Rohit also received money from these Pakistani contacts and through them, he came in contact with one Randeep alias Romi and got involved in illegal drug trafficking.

Randeep was a resident of Amritsar, Punjab and member of the Khalistan Zindabad Force, a banned terrorist organisation. According to the Special Cell, Randeep, who has been absconding since 2014 and is hiding abroad, also runs an international drug cartel and enjoys the support of Pakistan.

The official said Randeep assigned the task of killing the Kashmiri social activist to Rohit Chaudhary who asked another notorious criminal Jagdeep alias Kaka to arrange some boys for the murder of the Kashmiri social activist and also offered him Rs 50 lakhs for this assignment.

During the probe it was learnt that Jagdeep himself wanted to execute the killing but Rohit forbade him and asked him to arrange some new faces, so that at any stage, Rohit could not be linked to the killing.

"On this, Jagdeep further assigned the task to one of his old associate Mohit to arrange some new boys to commit the murder of the Kashmiri social activist," the DCP said.

At that time, Mohit was lodged in Punjab's Faridkot Jail and arranged for two boys Lakhwinder and Lakhan. He promised to pay them Rs 10 lakh each for this killing, the police said.

During this conspiracy, weapons were arranged by Hazi Shamim. Both Lakhwinder and Lakhan were arrested last year in February.

When Hazi Shamim came to know about the arrest of Rohit Chaudhary by the Delhi Police, he tried to seek anticipatory bail, but the High Court directed him to surrender. However instead of surrendering, he absconded.

The official said that Hazi Shamim on the basis of specific information was finally arrested from Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh on January 19.

"Five pistols of .32 bore and 20 live cartridges were also recovered from his house.," the official said, adding that all backward and forward linkages are still being investigated in the case.