HYDERABAD: Twelve persons, including the owner of a private security agency firm, were arrested on Monday for their involvement in a racket to procure illegal firearms with fake arm licences.
The racket was busting after a raid on two security agencies, Scientific Maintenance Security Services in Mahendra Hills and Writers Safe Guard in Balanagar. In the raid, police arrested 11 security guards and the owner for possessing illegal weapons. Police recovered 12 double barrel and 23 single barrel guns, 38 rounds of ammunition and 11 fake arms licences. According to police, T Raja Vijay Prakash Babu, the owner of a security agency Protection Management Services was supplying security guards to SMSS and WSG. Prakash Babu is an exserviceman who worked as a Special Police officer in 2008.
The arrested guards are Sanjay Choubey, Sanjay Sharma and Brijesh Kumar Singh, all hailing from Uttar Pradesh, Asgar Ali, Ashok Singh, Rajnarayan Singh, Bhagwar Dayal, Brijeder Singh, Ashok Kumar, Ram Kawal Pradhan and Arvind Kumar Yadav (28) from Bihar.
"The guards hailing from AP, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are deployed at different establishments in the twin cities. During inspection, we found the guards had failed to reregister their weapons at local police stations," city police commissioner AK Khan said and added teams would be sent to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to collect more details from the licencing authority.
After written confirmation, police would prosecute the accused for possessing weapons in violation of norms. Khan said stringent action would also be taken against the security agencies.