COIMBATORE: A handgun found unclaimed in a private courier van recently is believed to be of a retired CRPF personnel, who lost it on December 22 near Avadi in Chennai.
A van driver near Sulur went to the Sulur Police on December 24 saying the handgun was found abandoned in his vehicle and that he thought it was a police gun.
After initial investigation, police found that the bullet size of the gun was 7.46 mm against the police force’s 9 mm.
As proper police permission was a must to possess and use handgun, the technical details of the weapon was provided to the senior police officials.
Three days later, it was found on Tuesday that the gun belonged to S Mathiyazhagan (46), a retired CRPF personnel hailing from Nagercoil. Mathiyazhagan is presently working in a private concern near Avadi and lives at Cholapuram in Chennai.
“The gun belonged to the retired CRPF personnel. He lost it on December 22... We are still investigating the matter,” the police said.
It is learnt that Mathiyazhagan had tried to lodge a complaint with the Avadi Police. But as he was residing in Cholapuram, he was made to run from pillar to post over police limits issue. “We are probing as to who stole the gun from Chennai to Coimbatore,” the police said.
On Friday night, a man in a safari suit got a lift in the courier van from Pattanam Pirivu in the L&T bypass on the outskirts of Coimbatore.
While getting lift, he told the driver that he was a police personnel. After travelling around 2 km, he asked the driver to drop him back at Pattanam Pirivu as his colleagues had reached there.
Believing this, the van driver dropped him back. The next day, while cleaning the vehicle, the driver found the handgun.