Meerut: A day after a huge racket of poaching and international arms smuggling was uncovered during 17-hour-long joint raids carried out by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and wildlife department at the house of a retired colonel and his national-level shooter son in Meerut, a Slovenian national and two Delhi shooters, one of whose kids are national-level shooters, have been sent to Tihar Jail on Monday. Officials in DRI, who were dumbfounded at the amount of arms and ammunition seized from the house of Devendra Kumar Bishnoi, a retired Army colonel and a Bangladesh Liberation War and Operation Blue Star veteran, and his national-level shooter son Prashant Bishnoi, said this might just be the tip of an international arms smuggling racket.
Raj Kumar Digvijay, additional director of DRI, Delhi zonal unit, told TOI, “Boris SoboticMikolic, a Slovenian national and an arms dealer, and two Delhi shooters -- Amit Goel and another person whose name we are not disclosing since his two kids are national-level shooters, have been sent to Tihar Jail on judicial remand of 14 days on the charges of smuggling of weapons on Monday evening. This might just be the tip of an iceberg of an international racket as their interrogation might disclose more names. Meanwhile, efforts are being made to arrest Prashant Bishnoi.”
According to the sources, the DRI officers had recently intercepted three passengers, including Mikolic 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 had mis-declared the quantity and value of the arms and ammunition to customs and tried to clear these items misusing the scheme and import policy meant for the renowned shooters. Later, searches were conducted by the DRI teams at the residences of the syndicate members in Meerut and Delhi.
Meanwhile, the forest department has issued an alert for Prashant Bishnoi, the main accused, and intensified patrolling in the jungles of Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Bulandshahr and other areas to keep a check on illegal activities taking place in violation of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. “As many as 10 teams – each with 5-6 officials – have been set up for patrolling in the forest areas of adjoining districts to check any illegal activity. Also, efforts are being made to arrest Prashant Bishnoi,” said Mukesh Kumar, chief conservator of forest (West zone), UP.
As many as 44 guns – many of them foreign-made sophisticated weapons, 50,000 cartridges, skins of blackbuck and leopard, nine skulls of chinkara, blackbuck and barking deer – eight with their antlers intact, two trophies – one each of blackbuck and sambar deer, one knife with an ivory handle, a whopping 117.5 kg animal meat said to be of nilgai kept in 45 packets in a freezer and Rs 1 crore cash were seized from the house of Bishnois in Civil Lines area of Meerut early on Sunday. 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.
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. “Since all the seized weapons are foreign-made, there is a clear indication that this is an international racket. There are chances that many high-profile names will crop up during the investigation,” said a source.
