BENGALURU: The ballistic report from the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), Bengaluru, which had confirmed that the same country made 7.65mm pistol (katta) was used in the murder of Kannada scholar M M Kalburgi and editor activist Gauri Lankesh will be at the core of the first chargesheet that the SIT is likely to file in the Kalburgi assassination case by the end of the month.
The killer pistol, which was reportedly bought from North Karnataka, is yet to be recovered by the special police team and, according to sources, it was allegedly destroyed by perpetrators to erase critical evidence.
“The fact that country made pistols of 7.65mm calibre were used in the four high profile ideological killings of Prof Narendra Dabholkar in Pune, Comrade Govind Pansare in Kolhapur, Prof M M Kalburgi in Dharwad and Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru, is a strong lead in the investigations. The SIT started a probe in the Gauri murder case by going through the underworld markets of country made firearms in the state.
Katta is a booming business in Vijaypura, Kalaburagi, Bidar and Ballari districts in North Karnataka, where they are smuggled in from Bihar, Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Uttar Pradesh (UP) and sold at a premium price,” said an officer, who didn’t wish to be named. He added that the use of country made arms is proportional to the demography of a region. The more feudal a place is, the higher is the incidence of crime there. North Karnataka is more feudal than the rest of the state with acute socio-economic disparities among people. “The contraband pistol was used in two killings because it was easily available and was meant to keep the killers anonymous for a long time,” said a senior police officer.
In South India, Coimbatore used to be the biggest manufacturer and supplier of contraband firearms to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), till they were banned in India in 1991 and the underground trade of katta in Tamil Nadu began dwindling. The cadres of the banned extreme Left Wing - the Communist Party of India (Maoist)-for sometime bought arms from Coimbatore,”he added.
Kattas are manufactured in bulk in Munger in Bihar and Dhar in MP followed by Azamgarh and Gorakhpur in UP. “In Munger and Dhar there are 50 to 60 families of smiths, who have been in the business from the time of the British. They manufacture weapons using digital technology and lathe machines at home and imitate factory made weapons like Kalashnikovs so well that often the investigating agencies are at loss to detect their origin. Almost all the family members engaged in the illicit business have multiple criminal cases against them. They are arrested, sent to jail and are out on bail. Once they are out of prison they get back to their illegal activities,” the officer said.
The price of a country-made revolver ranges anywhere between Rs 40,000 and Rs 50,000, whereas a pistol can cost between Rs 70,000 and Rs 1 lakh. “The price depends on the demand, availability, target and the risk involved,” he added.