Telangana police arrested a retired army havildar in connection with the theft of a large cache of firearms and ammunition from the Bell of Arms at the 20 battalion Madras Regiment’s headquarters at Secunderabad cantonment on the intervening night of August 30 and 31, police said on Friday.
Since he was a familiar face, the guard at the gate did not suspect him when he was entering the area, they added. “Subsequently, he travelled for a couple of kilometres on his bike and later transferred them into his Maruti Brezza car which he was driving to carry passengers to eke out his livelihood. He travelled towards Srisailam Road and carried passengers midway to avoid being suspected. The investigation was jointly carried out by the Hyderabad Task Force, Special Operations Team (SOT), law-and-order police and intelligence officials. Police initially suspected that the theft involved only insiders and ruled out the involvement of outsiders.
The police also recovered all the stolen weapons and ammunition from the accused, identified as Upputholla Mallesh (37), at his residence at Kowkoor village in Rangareddy district and also his native village Jangam Reddy Pally in Nagarkurnool disctrict. “Mallesh was booked under Sections 331 (4) (house breaking in the night for theft) and 305 (aggravated forms of theft of public property) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). Explaining the modus operandi of the arms theft, police said Mallesh came to the Kote and Battalion Magazine (arms and ammunition storage) of Madras Regiment on his two-wheeler around 11 pm on August 30. The stolen arms included four AK-203 rifles, one 5.56 mm INSAS rifle, six 9 mm pistols and a civilian 6.35-bore pistol. Police also recovered 1,156 rounds of 9 mm ammunition, 720 rounds of AK-203 ammunition and INSAS ammunition, besides magazines and other equipment.
He was produced in the local court and remanded to judicial custody,” director general of police C V Anand said at a press conference. After dropping the passengers en route, he reached his native village in Amrabad,” the DGP said.
Based on the complaint filed by the army, Bollaram police registered a case and launched an investigation. The theft came to light on August 31 morning, when Vinod Kumar Naik, the officer in charge of the arms facility, noticed the missing weapons and lodged a complaint.
