New Delhi: Most parts of the 45 guns found in the possession of a couple in Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport Monday were “genuine, and with slight modifications, could be used to shoot people,” sources in the security establishment told ThePrint Thursday.
According to a statement issued by the customs department Tuesday, the accused — identified as Jagjit Singh (41) and Jaswinder Kaur (31) — returned by flight from Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City Monday, when they raised the suspicion of customs officers in the airport by their behaviour.
The officers then intercepted the couple with the two bags in their possession, which had been handed to them by Manjit Singh, Jagjit’s brother, and a third accused in the case. Upon further investigation the officers found 45 handguns, worth Rs 22.5 lakh, in these bags, the statement added.
After the guns were found, customs officers recovered them from the bags and seized them under Section 110 of the Customs Act, 1962 (dealing with seizure of goods, documents and things) and the accused were arrested under Section 104 of the same Act, the statement had further said.
Manjit had reached the airport on a flight from Paris and handed over the bags to the waiting Jagjit and Jaswinder, the statement added. The authorities are on the lookout for him.
“Most parts of the guns are genuine, but the barrel is not. The parts can be dismantled & assembled again with a genuine barrel. Further, the metal is not of very good quality,” said a source in the security establishment.
The source added that the handguns were of the kind commonly found in India, and could be used to shoot somebody, but only with a modified barrel and a 0.22 calibre bullet.
A senior officer in the customs department told ThePrint that six-seven varieties of guns were found in the bag, which the accused had procured from France for Rs 4,000-5,000 (each), with the intent of selling them in India for Rs 50,000-60,000 each.
According to the officer, Jagjit and Jaswinder are married and reside in Defence Colony, Gurgaon. The two had allegedly gone to Vietnam about five days back, as part of an elaborate scheme to smuggle weapons into the country.
The guns found in their bags were of Italian origin, and were smuggled in from France by Manjit Sigh — Jagjit’s brother — who had arrived from Paris by flight at 2 am, around the same time the accused arrived from Vietnam, the officer claimed.
He also said that the accused — Jagjit, Jaswinder and Manjit — came up with the plan to take flights from two different cities and meet at the IGI airport in Delhi, because luggage arriving from some places are screened more heavily than others.
The officer claimed that during interrogation, Jagjit and Jaswinder admitted that in December 2010, Jagjit and Manjit had smuggled 25 guns from Turkey, worth approximately Rs 12.5 lakh, in a similar manner.
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Placed on surveillance based on ‘spot profiling’
The senior customs officer quoted above told ThePrint that Jagjit and Jaswinder arrived from Ho Chi Minh City Monday and were placed under surveillance based on “spot-profiling”, after customs officers monitoring the CCTV footage noticed them hanging around a part of the airport with their 18-month old daughter, as if waiting for someone or something. This raised the suspicion of the customs officers.
“The baggage belt for Manjit’s Air France flight was close to Jagjit and Jaswinder’s luggage belt. Their flights also landed only about 20 minutes apart. After Manjit removed the two bags with the guns from the belt, he handed it to the couple and left the airport,” claimed the officer.
He added: “Nobody stopped him because he was not under suspicion at the time. The couple waited 20 minutes in the same spot till Manjit had left, and then started making their way towards their exit. Suspecting that something was afoot, customs officers intercepted the couple with their luggage when they had crossed the green channel of the arrival hall.”
After an unsatisfactory interrogation, the officers decided to screen the luggage, and spotted the weapons, the customs officer claimed.
According to the officer, Jaswinder had removed and destroyed the baggage tags on the bags, because it would have indicated France, and not Vietnam, as the origin of travel, raising the risk of them being caught.
The officer said Jagjit and Manjit lived in the same house in Defence Colony, and owned a real-estate business, and also had a registered licence to sell guns in shops.
“However, this is all on paper, and their shops serve as fronts to channelise the money they get from selling these guns in the grey market,” he claimed. The official alleged that Manjit already had three FIRs registered against him for criminal intimidation and violence, and was a “hardened criminal” with a “history of violence”.
The customs department is on the look ouT for him and has enlisted the help of local police officials in the search, the officer added.
According to the statement issued by the customs department Tuesday, the combined total monetary worth of the guns smuggled by them this time, and earlier from Turkey, would amount to Rs 35 lakh.
The statement also said that Jagjit and Jaswinder’s 18 month old daughter has been handed over to her grandmother.
Tanvi Trehan is an undergraduate student of English literature at Ashoka University. She is an intern with ThePrint.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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