Meerut: A huge racket of poaching and international arms smuggling has been uncovered during 17-hour-long joint raids carried out by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), wildlife department and local police, at the house of a retired colonel, who is an Operation Blue Star veteran, and his national-level shooter son in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut.
As many as 44 guns – many of them sophisticated weapons of foreign make, 50,000 cartridges, skins of blackbuck and leopard, nine skulls of deer (including chinkara, blackbuck and barking deer) – eight with their antlers intact, two trophies – one each of blackbuck and sambar deer, antlers of three sambar deer, seven teeth of wild animals, one knife with an ivory handle and a whopping 117.5 kg animal meat in 45 packets kept in a freezer and said to be of nilgai were seized from their house in Civil Lines.
A case has been registered by the forest department against shooter Prashant Bishnoi and his father Col (retd) Devendra Kumar Bishnoi, but no arrests have been made so far.
Devendra Kumar, 72, who fought the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war and was also a part of Operation Blue Star in 1984, later resigned from the Army and worked for 12 years in UP state services. Kumar’s son Prashant Bishnoi, a national-level shooter, had recently participated in the 60th National Shooting Championship (Big Bore) 2017 conducted by National Rifles Association of India (NRAI) at Kadarpur in Gurgaon in April and secured 527 points out of 600. He also secured 151 and 174 ranks in 300metre Rifle Prone Men Civilian and 300metre Rifle Prone Men National categories respectively. The NRAI has designated him as a “renowned” shooter.
The family resides in house number 36/4, Civil Lines, just opposite Police Lines and hardly 500 metres away from the forest department’s office.
In a press statement released by Raj Kumar Digvijay, additional director of DRI, Delhi zonal unit, it was said that 100 illegally imported firearms and 2 lakh cartridges were seized from two locations in Delhi and Meerut. A source in DRI said that 44 firearms and 50,000 cartridges of these were seized from Meerut alone.
“The officers of the Delhi zonal unit of DRI seized more than 100 illegally imported firearms, 2 lakh cartridges and a huge stock of hides, including that of a leopard, skulls and meat of endangered animals from Delhi and Meerut. Acting on intelligence, the DRI officers intercepted three passengers, including a Slovenian national and supplier of arms, at the IGI airport – who were travelling by Turkish Airlines from Ljubljana, Slovenia, via Istanbul carrying 25 illegally imported weapons. They mis-declared the quantity and value of the arms and ammunitions to the Customs and tried to clear these items misusing the scheme and import policy meant for the renowned shooters,” the DRI release said. Later, searches were conducted by the DRI teams at the residences of the syndicate members in Meerut and Delhi, sources said.
Firearms of various make and models like Glock (Austria), Beretta (Italy), Arsenal (Italy), Benelli (Italy) and Blaser (Germany) were seized along with expensive cameras, thermal imaging binoculars and cartridges.
In the release, the DRI additional director mentioned that one of the suspects is believed to have recently killed a leopard near Jim Corbett area and processed the skin at his residence.
Mukesh Kumar, chief forest conservator, Meerut zone, said, “A case has been registered under various sections of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 against both Devendra Kumar and Prashant Bishnoi. Kumar has not been arrested so far because his role is still not clear and investigation will be done only after his son, who is at large, is found. The 117.5 kg of meat will be sent for sampling to the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun. While the family claims to have got it from Bihar, where the nilgais were hunted – as Bihar government had allowed hunting of nilgai, we cannot say much until sampling is done and reports arrive.”