Bhopal/Pune, Nov 22
In a high-stakes dawn operation spanning two states, police forces from Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra demolished a sprawling illegal arms manufacturing racket hidden in the forested hills of Umarti village of Barwani district.
Over 250 police personnel, including the Madhya Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), stormed four clandestine factories at 4 a.m. on Saturday, seizing machinery capable of producing over 500 unlicensed pistols and detaining 47 suspects, including seven key accused handed over to Maharashtra authorities. Almost all the accused had a criminal past.
Officers recovered a massive cache: semi-finished pistols, .32-bore firearms, manufacturing tools, lathes, drilling machines, and raw materials like metal barrels and firing pins. Unfinished weapons littered the sites, underscoring the factory's industrial scale — enough output to arm criminal syndicates for months.