BHOPAL: Cashless transactions have found eager takers in a clutch of youngsters in the jungles of western Madhya Pradesh. This is no ordinary group. For, the ‘Sikligars’ — a community adept at making firearms — in Dhar, Barwani, Burhanpur and Khargone districts are now using online cash transfer and digital wallet apps like Paytm.
Their gun-making and gunrunning skills are unmatched — customers and contacts are spread in at least 19 states, including Maoist-affected Chhattisgarh. Such is their fearsome reputation that the pistol which was to be reportedly used by D-Company shooters for eliminating BJP MP Varun Gandhi in 2009 was sourced from a Sikligar.
Recent investigations by the MP police special task force (STF) blew the lid off of this new penchant of the new generation Sikligars, who have shunned cash transactions and cash transfer through bank accounts.
The interrogation of gunrunner Chattan Singh, who was arrested in Indore with nine semi-automatic pistols by an MPSTF team led by inspector Chetan Singh Bais, spilled the beans about the new trend of this illegal business. Singh is a Sikligar from Signur in Khargone district.
What necessitated the change is that dozens of Sikligar bank accounts are either now under the scanner or are lying freezed at the request of the police. Another factor is the dearth of tribal men and women to work as couriers for delivering the weapons to customers and for returning with the cash.
“They send the pictures of firearms over social media platforms like WhatsApp. While the actual consignments are delivered to customers through trusted couriers, the payment is gradually being done through cashless modes,” a STF source says.
To further shield these transactions from the STF glare, the younger Sikligars are using cell-phone numbers of adjoining Uttar Pradesh and other states sourced from their customers to operate the digital wallets. They are said to be increasingly using women members of their families to negotiate deals with their ilk in the customer families in a planned manner.
“Though about 20 villages in the four districts are home to Sikligar families, around 200 Sikligars in Pachor village of Burhanpur district, Signur in Khargone, Umarthi and Ojhar in Barwani and Singhana, Bakaner and Gandhawani in Dhar are the main players involved in inter-state gun-making/gunrunning business,” says another STF source.
Though the customers and contacts span from J&K to Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh to Bihar and West Bengal to Delhi-NCR, the bulk of business comes from west UP, adjoining Gwalior-Chambal region of MP, Delhi-NCR and Rajasthan.
In February, the Rajasthan Anti-Terrorism Squad busted an inter-state gunrunning racket whose trail was traced to the Sikligars. The alleged inter-state fake arms license racket originating from J&K busted by Rajasthan ATS in 2017 too had important links to the Sikligars of western MP.
If sources are to be believed, then the illegal arms trade from MP, particularly to West UP and Delhi NCR, had figured during the discussions at the Annual DGP Conference in January.
The Sikligars make semi-automatic pistols priced between Rs 9,000 and Rs 15,000, and also automatic pistols bearing close resemblance to similar pistols of foreign make. Such pistols command prices ranging from Rs 30,000 to Rs 60,000.
“We’ve made deep inroads into the operations of the Sikligars and arrested 200-plus such gun-makers and gunrunners since 2010. Operations are underway against them and more results will be for all to see in future,” asserts SP MPSTF, Bhopal, Sunil Kumar Shivhare.