Police raid: Large cache of arms seized in Hubballi

The Hubballi-Dharwad Police Commissionerate officials conducted surprise raids in the houses of some of the history-sheeters in their jurisdiction on Tuesday and recovered weapons and drugs.

According to sources, various police stations in Hubballi-Dharwad conducted raids at 43 locations in Hubballi and 12 locations in Dharwad, and seized a cache of air guns, machetes, swords, daggers, and other lethal weapons. In total, the police have recovered three airguns, four swords, seven knives, and other sharp weapons.

The police officials, who were led by Deputy Commissioner of Police B S Nemagouda, began their raids at around 6:00 am. A team consisting of Assistant Commissioner of Police N B Sakri searched the house of 'notorious gangster' Chetan Hirekerur. While the search yielded nothing for the police, the officials gave him stern warning against having weapons. Chetan and his associates were later summoned to Old Hubballi Police Station.

The team later searched the premises of another 'rowdy' Junaid Mulla in Sadarsofa, which comes under Kasabapet police station limits, where they recovered two daggers and bikes from him.

They also raided the residences of Maruti Ronad, Vishal Gudihal, and Laxman Indaragi. All of them are accused in murder cases. Bendigeri police station officials recovered seven machetes, talwars, airguns, knives, and other lethal weapons from them.

Meanwhile, the Town Police station officials conducted raids on the houses of Jail Singh and Sher Singh and recovered one airgun, and other sharp weapons. Similar raids were also conducted by ACP Pathan in Hosur and Vidyanagar areas on the houses of rowdy sheeters and recovered weapons.

In Dharwad

In Dharwad, the police officials conducted raids houses of 12 history-sheeters. Details of recovery were yet to be made public by the police officials.

The raids also helped police officials nab two habitual offenders, who were absconding for long. They were Gururaj Kurbur and Manjunath Hiremani.

In one of the raids in Dharwad, the police recovered 90 grams of ganja from rowdy Vishnu Kondapalli. He has been booked under NDPS Act, the officials said.

Speaking to DH, Hubballi-Dharwad Police Commissioner M N Nagaraj said, these searches and raids were conducted to instill fear among the anti-social elements and send them a strong message. Safekeeping and using of illegal weapons will draw stern action from the police, he said, and added that the rowdy elements will be either jailed or externed from district.

On July 19, 2018, the police officials had conducted similar raids, where they had recovered several weapons. Since then the police officials are keeping a hawk's eye on the rowdy sheeters in the twin cities.