A joint team of Maharashtra's Jalgaon police shook up an alleged illegal weapons manufacturing and smuggling network with a sweeping raid in Umarti village of Madhya Pradesh's Barwani district overnight. Officers from Jalgaon, Nashik and Dhule police moved into the village after midnight, with the operation drawing on a force of more than 400 personnel in total.
What the operation aimed to achieve
According to police, the raid served two purposes at once, tracking down absconding and wanted accused persons linked to cases in Jalgaon district, and choking off gangs involved in making and smuggling country-made weapons. A convoy of 20 government vehicles set out under cover of darkness and rolled into Umarti village at around 4 am.
45 houses searched, 12 taken into custody
The intensive search that began at 4 am ran for roughly four hours, wrapping up around 8 am. During that window, police teams combed through 45 houses in the village. Twenty people were questioned on the spot, and 12 of them were subsequently detained for further interrogation.
Desi pistols, cartridges and molds recovered
The search turned up several significant finds. Teams recovered country-made weapons, ammunition and raw material used to manufacture them. From suspects tied to a case registered at Chopda Rural police station, officers seized two desi pistols and four live cartridges. Molds used to cast desi pistols, along with other raw material, were also recovered. In addition, police impounded 32 suspicious motorcycles during the operation.
27 absconding suspects' homes mapped
Alongside the search, police also carried out geo-tagging of the homes of 27 suspects who remain absconding, based on their location, a step meant to make it easier to track them down later. The goal, police said, is to arrest these accused and dismantle the illegal weapons network operating in the area.
Cases tied to three police stations
The entire operation was aimed at suspects and absconding accused linked to serious crimes registered at Chopda City, Chopda Rural and Pawarwadi police stations. Following this large, coordinated crackdown, networks involved in illegal weapons manufacturing and smuggling in the border region are said to be in disarray.
