Baba Siddique murder: Foreign or Mungeri pistol, how gangsters smuggle from Pakistan, Nepal

Mumbai: The 9 mm pistol used in the killing of former Maharashtra minister and NCP leader Baba Siddique has raised the question of the easy availability of sophisticated firearms.

The 9 mm is a prohibited weapon used only by law enforcement agencies and armed forces as a service weapon. However, the brazen killing in Mumbai’s Bandra area allegedly ordered by gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, has caused fear of the mafia attempting to raise its head again after more than two decades of silence.

Modus operandi of gangsters

The backbone of the mafia activity is the availability of manpower and weapons, especially firearms. Typically, the underworld hands over the photograph and the firearms to the assassin who is given the contract to kill. However, the kind of firearm given to the shooters depends on the profile of the target, the distance from which the shooting is to be done, and whether he is traveling in a high-end car.

A former senior police official said that if there is a high-profile target and a possibility of him traveling in an expensive vehicle, the gangsters use foreign-made pistols like Glock, which is an expensive weapon. “Such pistols are used if the target is to be shot from a distance or he is traveling in a vehicle where the locally made firearm won’t penetrate the glass,” the official said.

In cases, where the target is not very high-profile and the shooting is to be done from a close range, the locally-made pistols are used.

Distance determines use of firearms

Officers said that there is a big difference in the maximum distance that a foreign-made or local pistol bullet can cover. The price difference between the two is also steep, as foreign pistols like Glock cost multiple lakhs in the grey market while the local ones are available for Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000.

In Uttar Pradesh gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed’s shootout case, the assailants used Zigana pistols which cost around Rs seven lakh a piece in the grey market. Atiq, facing trial for the 2005 murder of BSP MLA Raju Pal, was shot dead along with his brother Ashraf in April last year in Prayagraj while being taken for a court-mandated routine medical check-up.

Mungeri weapons made in Bihar

Officers further said that the locally-made pistols are popularly called Mungeri weapons because Munger in Bihar is a big illegal firearm hub with a large number of clandestine factories making them. Besides Munger, there are quite a few factories in the Morena district of Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand. According to officials who have seized weapons, the locally-made pistols are made with good precision and the finishing is like the foreign-made ones. However, the major difference is in their performance.

Officials said that the foreign-made guns are smuggled through different routes into the country. Prominent routes are China, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Nepal.

Gangs that smuggled weapons

Sources said that the big players in weapon smuggling are Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan. Besides them, Vicky Malhotra, who used to be a close associate of Rajan, is also involved in arms smuggling. The latest entry in the weapons smuggling business is Lawrence Bishnoi, sources said. The weapons are smuggled using different modus operandi with instances of them concealed in the heroin consignment originating from Pakistan. Sources said that the route includes transportation from Pakistan to Afghanistan and then to Iran from where it is smuggled in barges to India.

Sources also said that weapons also work as a barter product for drugs and fake currency smuggling. “Many times the payment for drugs or fake currencies is made in the form of weapons,” the former crime branch officer said.

Weapons are smuggled into the country through the sea and land routes. One of the big instances of weapons smuggling through the sea route was in 2005 when Chhota Rajan tried to smuggle 34 foreign-made revolvers and 1,283 live cartridges from Bangkok. The arms consignment was concealed in one of the 27 drums containing grease. The drums were locked in a container. The Mumbai police, acting on information, had raided the container while it was kept near Nhava Sheva port after arrival, waiting for Customs checking.