Patna: Weapon smugglers in the state, lately, have begun to use their family members or women as shields to avoid police suspicions or check when transporting their consignment.
In at least three cases of main arms and consignments of ammunition are confiscated by the Special Task Force (STF) for certain intelligence input in two weeks, both female members or children or both traveling with consignment.
An IPS senior officer posted at the state police headquarters said the method was used several years ago.
He said in cases of women or children used as shields, weapons consignments were intercepted only in accurate intelligence cells.
“If not, the consignment is easily transported, avoiding police suspicions on the road.
This trend is seen in drug smuggling too,” he said.
On Thursday, STF won two ordinary rifles .315 bore, one regular gun 7.65mm and 460 live cartridges from three different drills of the car.
A constable BSF, JAI Pukar Rai, who has not reported to its unit for more than a year, transports the consignment of Ranchi to Bhojpur.
When STF intercepted the car, Rai, his wife and son were under 10 years old, accompanied him from Ranchi.
On June 30, STF intercepted another car in Kinjar in Arwal and restored ordinary cartridges and nine cartridges smuggled to Patna after buying it for RS3 Lakh from weapons smugglers in the style district in the style district.
Carbine was bought by a famous weapon smuggler Shambhu Kumar Yadav.
His 4-year-old son traveled in the front seat with four more in the car.
On June 24, STF arrested the Mandal Balvir and Sadhna Devi from the Autorickshaw standing in Sangrampur in Munger while allegedly smuggling 13 Countermade semi-automatic pistols, 26 magazines and 100 live cartridges.
STF arrested the brother of Sadhna Chandan Bhagat and broke a mini weapons factory in Dariyapur under the Gangta police station in Munger the following day.
Other senior IPS officers said police avoided checking vehicles with women and children in them.
“It makes everything easy for smugglers.
They also act as shields if there is a shootout.
The police cannot open or restore fire in such a scenario,” he said.
Quoting an interception on Thursday, he said Rai’s wife did not know about smuggling weapons.
“Rai has a fake weapons license.
He used to flash them in front of him but he smuggled weapons,” he said.