Uttar Pradesh: Army's nine magazines and 180 cartridges recovered from Firozabad

PRAYAGRAJ: In a major breakthrough, the Uttar Pradesh police on Wednesday arrested three key members of the notorious Pakauri gang in Firozabad district and seized nine magazines, 180 cartridges of 5.56mm of INSAS rifle, three country-made pistols of 0.315 bore along with two live cartridges, six live cartridges of 0.12 bore and a tempo from their possession.
The recovered magazines and cartridges of INSAS rifle belonged to the Indian Army that were allegedly stolen by the Pakauri gang members from a parked army vehicle on National Highway -2 on the intervening night of February 7 and 8.
SSP (Firozabad) Ajay Kumar told TOI that three members of the gang, including Ajay Tiwari alias Pakauri of Firozabad, Honey alias Pradeep Kumar Srivastava of Etah and Ravi of Etawah were arrested. They had allegedly stolen the magazines and cartridges from the army vehicle.
“ A joint team of the surveillance cell, the special operation group and Narkhi police received a tip off about Pakauri gang who used to target parked vehicles on national highways and tracked the location of the gang when they were planning to dispose off stolen magazines and cartridges,” the SSP said.
The police also came to know that the gang leader Ajay Tiwari used to hire private tempos to execute thefts. The gang doesn’t hesitate to open fire while executing crimes.
Police said that as many as 21 criminal cases were pending against Ajay and five against Ravi.