A day after the Enforcement Directorate seized at least Rs 1 crore in cash and 40 guns besides 117 kg nilgai meat, animal skin and ivory from residence of a retired Army officer, police arrested a Slovenian national and two Delhi shooters on Monday in the poaching and international arms smuggling racket.
According to a Times of India report, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence officials said that the arrests may only be the top of an iceberg as the network of poachers and arms smugglers unravels.
“Boris Sobotic Mikolic, a Slovenian arms dealer, and two Delhi shooters — Amit Goel and another we are not naming — are in 14-day judicial remand for smuggling weapons,” Raj Kumar Digvijay, DRI additional director (Delhi) was quoted by Times of India as saying.
Meanwhile, the police have intensified the hunt for main accused Prashant Bishnoi, also a national level shooter and son of retired Colonel Devendra Kumar Bishnoi, a Bangladesh war and Operation Blue Star veteran, whose Meerut residence was raided for 17 hours on Sunday.
The report cited sources saying that DRI officers had recently had recently intercepted three passengers, including Mikolic and an arms supplier at the IGI Airport.
The two were travelling by Turkish Airlines from Ljubljana, Slovenia, vis Istanbul carrying 25 illegally imported weapons. They had declared the wrong quantity and value of the arms and ammunition to Customs and tried to clear these items under the import policy for renowned shooters.
Meanwhile, the forest department issued an alert for Prashant Bishnoi and intensified patrolling in the jungles of Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Bulandshahr and other area to keep a check on poaching.
“As many as 10 teams — each with five-six officials — have been set up for patrolling,” said Mukesh Kumar, chief conservator of forest (West zone), UP.
117 kg meat of nilgai, Rs 1 crore in cash, 40 guns, five skulls of deer, horns of sambar deer, antlers of antelope and black buck, animal skin and ivory were seized from a makeshift warehouse in Kumar's residence.
Raids were also been conducted at four other places across Delhi-NCR where 145 guns have been recovered. The raids were conducted at - the residence of a gun house owner in Shalimar Garden, Delhi, Prashant Bishnoi's house in Gurgaon, IGI airport and one another location belonging to Amit Goel.
