Police claimed that it is one of the biggest haul of cartridges in Delhi. (Representational)
Six members of a syndicate supplying ammunition illegally were arrested with 4,500 live cartridges, police said on Thursday.
The accused have been identified as Ramesh Kumar (46), Dipanshu Mishra (35) Ikram (40), Akram (42), Manoj Kumar (39) and Amit Rao (33), they said.
Police claimed that it is one of the biggest haul of cartridges in the national capital.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Sanjeev Kumar Yadav said six people were arrested by the northern range of Delhi Police's Special Cell and 4,500 live cartridges were seized from them.
Mr Yadav said the first arrest in the case was made on February 14.
A trap was laid near Mukundpur flyover on Outer Ring Road where Ramesh arrived in a car and handed over a white plastic bag to Deepanshu.
Both of them were arrested after a brief chase and 4,000 illegal cartridges were recovered from them, the senior official said.
Based on the inputs of these two accused, the main source of supply of this syndicate Amit was arrested from Mansarovar Industrial Area in Jaipur on February 16, he said.
Following more raids on the next day, Ikram was arrested from Panipat and Akram from Karnal and 500 cartridges were recovered from his possession. Manoj was arrested from Panchkula, he added.
"During interrogation, all the accused disclosed that they are part of an illegal cartridges supply syndicate and received the ammunition from Ramesh illegally. They then supplied them further to various people, including criminals in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh," Mr Yadav said.
Investigations revealed that Ramesh had been working at Ambala gun house since 2018 and earned Rs 10,000 per month but owing his low income, he lured Amit (owner of Ambala Gun House) to sell cartridges illegally in the grey market so that they could earn a quick buck, the senior police officer said.
Amit used to buy cartridges from an ammunition company but did not make proper entry in the record book. Ramesh and Amit then sold these cartridges at higher rates to various people, including Deepanshu and the other three arrested men at Rs 125 per cartridge, he said.
"Due to the COVID-19-induced lockdown, Deepanshu, an MBA graduate, who worked in a software company in Noida was sacked from the job.
"He later came in contact with Ramesh and started procuring cartridges from him to make easy money and further sold them to his contacts in Delhi and UP at Rs 200 to 250 per cartridges," the officer added.
The police have recovered two cars used for supplying cartridges from the accused along with mobile handsets and SIM cards.