SUKKUR: The railway police of Jacobabad on Monday claimed to have seized illegal sophisticated arms and ammunition in a raid on the Akbar Bugti Express and arrested one suspect.

Speaking at a press conference at the Railway police station in Jacobabad, Sukkur Division Railways SSP Muhammad Atiq Malik said that with the help of intelligence agencies, the railway police recovered a large number of sealed boxes conaining arms and ammunition being transported through the train coming from Peshawar at the Jacobabad railway station.

When the boxes were opened, illegal sophisticated arms and ammunition were also found along with legal ones. The boxes were booked by Meero Khan Abro and Bashir Ahmed, who are arms dealers based in Dera Murad Jamali, under transport licence of another dealer, Sanaullah, based in Peshawar.

He said the arms were brought from Peshawar and transported to Lahore by Khyber Mail from where they were dispatched to Dera Allahyar through Akbar Bugti Express.

He said the secret agencies and railway police in their join action seized 298 repeaters of 12 bore, 284 pistols of 30 bore, 3,500 rounds, 20 non-prohibited bore rifles and its 500 rounds, six magazines of 9mm pistols, 84 magazines of different kinds of arms, 22 round magazines, 819 bullets of different bores. An accused namely Meero Khan Abro resident of Dera Murad Jamali (Balochistan) was also arrested.

The SSP further told that the weapons recovered bore names of different countries, including China, Turkey and the US, adding that the weapons were illegal and the matter was being investigated. He said a case had been registered in which the name of Meero Khan Abro was also included.

He said the weapons valued Rs5 million.

Talking to Dawn, the SSP said he had sent complete information to the Sindh IGP who had also talked in this regard to his KPK counterpart for hold an inquiry against those police officials of Peshawar who had issued a sealed certificate about the consignment.

But when the consignment was opened in Jacobabad, 40 per cent of the arms and ammunition were found in excess of the listed weapons.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2016