A bang for the buck in the badlands

Ranchi: The gun bazaar of Jharkhand is a one-stop shop for anyone willing to buy illegal arms of any kind. One can buy country-made 'kattas' for Rs 5,000 and sophisticated pistols, rifles, carbines and double-barrel guns for Rs 20,000 to 60,000 in Jharkhand where one of every five districts illegal gun factories churn out thousands of guns annually.The prices vary according to the make desired by customers.The AK-47 is also available for Rs 1 lakh and above.
Cops in Delhi seized a consignment of guns being supplied from Dhanbad to Delhi by an agent on Wednesday, opening up facts on manufacturing of guns in Jharkhand. The police found 50 sophisticated pistols and 100 cartridges hidden in a car and arrested a certain Savinder Kumar. Kumar said the consignment was sent from a factory in Dhanbadand also made some other disclosures about Jharkhand's gun-bazaar.
The disclosures have not surprised cops in Jharkhand. "The racket of illegal gun dealers is well established. Some of the arms are manufactured in the state itself. It is kind of child's play for them to make kattas and country-made guns. It only requires a pipe and some other basic materials," state police spokesperson ADG S N Pradhan told TOI. He said AK-47s are brought from northeast and Kashmir.
In some roadside shops in Lower Bazaar and Chutia areas, gun agents can be easily found with the help of locals. "You need to make an advance payment and the material will be home delivered," a vendor at Kantatoli, who did not want to be named, said.
The buyers are mostly petty criminals, criminal gangs and sometimes extremists belonging to 18 different splinter groups of CPI (Maoist). As the crime world is growing, the demands never dry up.
The deliveries are made in Jharkhand and anywhere in north India. The agents use inter-state buses and public transport as well as human couriers to transport the arms. In 2015, several arms were found in a passenger bus in Ranchi's Namkum area.
Most of the gun factories are situated in Maoist bastions where cops rarely venture. Gun teachers from Bihar aid the state's gun-makers. "The nexus stretches from Jharkhand to Bihar also. The retired experts from Munger's gun-factories come to train local gun-makers," Simdega SP Rajiv Ranjan Singh, who arrested two Bihar-based gun teachers from a gun factory in 2015, said.
Ranchi's gun magistrate Rajesh Kumar Singh said the state capital has around 2,200 licensed gun owners. Pradhan claimed the police have been tracking the gun nexus and have made several arrests and destroyed many gun factories throughout the state.
"Unless the source of the guns is destroyed, the market will thrive. Secondly, we need to destroy the supply chain. The SPs have been asked in recent meetings to gather intelligence and destroy the gun-making units," Pradhan said.
In connection with the Delhi gun haul, Dhanbad SSP S K Jha said the police are tracking the links of the arrested accused.