Indian gun runners stealing arms from state arms factory
Gun smugglers in India have been stealing arms and ammunition under the nose of the the Ministry of Defense. With insider help they have been stole weapons and ammunition from the state arms factory Indian Ordnance Factories (IOF).
Times of India reports (emphasis mine):
Apart from 25 guns, including five rifles, police found over 6,000 rounds of ammunition, three pen pistols and eight fake gun licenses. It was the arrest of Ashok Mondal and five of his aides that led police to a trader’s house and one of the biggest arms haul in the country.
Investigators have found that the gang used fake gun licenses to procure sophisticated weapons from the factories. “Without help of some ordnance factory employees, it is impossible to smuggle out arms and ammunition,” said an investigator. CID officers seized more than 6000 bullets of different calibres manufactured by ordnance factories, including bullets used in AK assault rifles.
In a country where firearms are heavily restricted and, I believe, imports are rare or non-existant I would have thought this kind of this would not happen.
There is no place on earth that lacks piss poor reporting.
“sophisticated weapons” what a joke.
Wow, 25 guns and 6000 rounds. What a haul… It would appear that they have learned from our media quite well how to make much ado about not so much. Reckon that I would be a bit more worried about the pen pistols and the fake licenses.
9X19 Dan, I agree, 6000 rounds? A man can carry that quantity of .22 LR ammo, not exactly a major haul.
Steve,
India’s prohibiyivelu restrictive gun laws were brought in by the British and then made even worse by the Socialist Congress Party which rules the country now. The Congress has led a reign of terror in several parts of the country killing hundreds of people including over 3000 Sikhs in Delhi when their party’s leader and Prime Minister Indira GAndhi was killed by two of her Sikh bodyguards in 1984. Their biggest fear is of retaliation by those whose families have been affected by their thuggery – anyone remember Hitler and how he disarmed Germany?
The efforts at disarming India have worked only with law abiding citizens, though. The UN (another band of anti gunners if there was one) estimates that there are 40 million illegal firearms in the country – in reality there may be several million more as arms continue to get smuggled in and also made locally by various secessionist and terrorist groups. In the end, the people who suffer the most are ordinary Indians. The Times of India photographer who bravely took pictures of the terrorists who attacked Mumbai told The New York Times that he wished that he had a gun and not a camera in his hands as he would have been able to stop the terrorists. The Times of India did not carry that comment itself. Shows what a farce the whole business of guns in India really is.
Mehul, thanks for the info. I think that quote by Gandhi sums up the British, but what I cannot understand is why the Indian government did the same thing.
“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.” — Mahatma Gandhi
The sad thing is that he was wrong, the Indian government seems to have agreed with the British on that point.
I find it funny how they have to mention AK specifically. Thank the media for making it probably the most evil weapon of all time. Even more evil than a-bombs. It isn’t a story or have the glitz of tragedy if the AK does not rear its ugly head, even if the story has nothing to do with it.
Maybe this is where the Mexicans are getting all their guns. They sure the hell aren’t coming from CA gun-shows.
The Indian Government, power following after power, maintained the same limitations that the British had established. But guns and shooting is a pretty expensive “sport” in a country where there poor are in such vast numbers and “hobbies” generally have to be things that don’t add additional living costs – or only very small costs.