BHOPAL: The AK-47 being used by organised criminal gangs in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh isn’t new. But the use of the assault rifle in executing a murder related to a property dispute has come to the fore perhaps for the first time in adjoining Madhya Pradesh. It was not any organised criminal gang, though, which committed the crime but Army jawan Dhirendra Singh who, along with his younger brother Nagendra Singh alias Shibbu, murdered 25-year-old Suresh alias Nilu Gautam in Raipur Karchuliyan area of Rewa district on June 16.
Dhirendra served a stint with the Rashtriya Rifles in Jammu and Kashmir way back in 2006 and has been allegedly in possession of the AK-47 since then. Currently posted with the Army’s Armoured Regiment in Ranchi, he had come home on a month-long leave last month when he killed his childhood friend and dumped the body in a dam in Rewa.
According to sources in Rewa police, Dhirendra, who is in a week-long police remand, is being grilled to find out the trail of the AK-47. The assault rifle and three magazines were recovered by the police from the house of a relative of the accused in Satna. Police sources said that during questioning, Dhirendra revealed that the rifle was seized during a combing and search operation in Kupwara over a decade ago. But police are probing whether he filched the weapon from any army facility in Kashmir.
“The trail of AK-47 is under our investigation. We’ve gathered some vital clues, but it cannot be made public,” the Rewa DSP Sushant Saxena said.