'Azad Group' selling illegal weapons busted in Delhi, four held

New Delhi, Nov 24 (IANS) Delhi Police's Special Cell has arrested four members of a self-proclaimed 'Azad Group', which supplied illegal weapons and ammunition to criminals across the country.

The accused have been identified as Abhishek Bhardwaj, Hukum Dev, Aditya Tiwari and Tarun Chauhan.

According to the police, the group used social media to connect with each other. The gang leader, Abhishek, created a YouTube channel by the name of 'azadgroupmunger', and Instagram account named 'azadgroup011' and Facebook profile titled 'Azadgroupmunger'.

Notably, Bihar's Munger is infamous for making illegal weapons for many years now.

Through these social media platforms, Abhishek came in contact with his other associates and included them in his gang for running an arms supply racket.

According to P.S Kushwah, DCP, Special Cell, on Wednesday, inputs were received that members of Azad Group are active in supplying illicit arms and ammunition in Delhi and neighbouring states.

"The inputs also suggested the presence of gang members in the Paharganj area. It was disclosed that they are planning to celebrate the birthday of their gang leader Abhishek at Mahipalpur by doing celebratory firing," said the DCP.

In a joint operation carried out by the Special Cell and ATS Bihar on Wednesday, all the four accused persons were apprehended from near the Mahipalpur flyover at around 5.40 p.m.

The accused were carrying illicit arms and ammunition with them, said Kushwah.

On interrogation, it was revealed that the accused persons took a consignment of recovered weapons recently from a person named Kunal from Burhanpur in Madhya Pradesh, who also gifted one pistol to Abhishek as a birthday gift with .

'Gift Kunal B.A.B. Azad' was found engraved on one of the recovered pistols, said the DCP.

"The gang members were procuring illicit arms and ammunition from Luv Kumar alias Lampat and Abhijeet, who are based in Munger, Bihar. They were further selling them to their contacts based in Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh), Bhuvneshwar, Agartala, Ranchi and Punjab for the last three years," said the DCP.

The police have also recovered two .32 pistols, two extra magazines, 20 cartridges and one country-made pistol along with two bullets.

"Further probe is on to apprehend the other gang members," said the officer.