Blame It On The North

The sudden spurt in crimes involving guns is all the more alarming considering Bangalore does not have a history of such incidents. Not a single incident of crime involving guns was recorded in the previous two years, not even in the city's underworld which always has access to firearms ranging from imported revolvers to AK-47s. But with 1995 witnessing bullish economic activity in the city, particularly in real estate, coupled with continuing migration from Bombay and the northern parts of the country, the birth of a 'gun culture' has raised the spectre of Bangalore going the Bombay or Delhi way where encounters and crimes involving firearms are relegated to the inside pages of newspapers.

Unlike the two metros, the gun culture in Bangalore owes its birth to a clear trend. According to Police Commissioner T. Srinivasulu, investigations since July this year found the needle of suspicion pointing strongly at north Indian students and college dropouts belonging to Bangalore's capitation fee-based professional colleges.

Ratan's arrest has yielded valuable pointers to groups of students and dropouts possessing country-made revolvers and indulging in thefts. The 29-year-old dropout from M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology (MSRIT) was arrested by a specially constituted police squad following a tip-off that the youngster from Punjab was attempting to sell a country-made revolver. While Ratan disclosed the involvement of three other MSRIT dropouts in the racket, the police were unable to apprehend them and only succeeded in seizing five country-made revolvers and some ammunition from a house used by the group for their transactions.

The arrest revealed a mine of information. "We found that most of the incidents involving revolvers in the last few months were featured students and dropouts from Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar," says Srinivasulu. "These country-made weapons called tamanchas are very easily available in the north, especially in and around Delhi, for as little as Rs 1,000."

 A member of the special squad that arrested Ratan said there was information about north Indian students and dropouts using the weapons to commit roadside thefts and also threaten juniors in the colleges to part with money and valuables. Though no offi-cial estimates exist, senior police officials privately speculate on the involvement of more than a dozen groups of north Indian students or dropouts.

For these students, bringing in country-made revolvers to Bangalore is very simple as they travel by trains which do not allow thorough checking at the points of departure or arrival due to the large volume of traffic. Asks K. Ramamurthy, DCP (administration), whose department is responsible for issuing arms licences: "How are we to check this influx of illegal weapons if a young man without any criminal background is carrying revolvers in his travel bag along with his clothes and books?"

 The Bangalore police have sent teams on recce trips to Delhi, Ghaziabad, Punjab and Bihar to collect information about youngsters studying in the south visiting blacksmiths to buy country revolvers. A vigil is also being maintained on half-a-dozen professional colleges.

While the police wrack their brains to devise methods to apprehend the young guns, a section of real estate businessmen are alarmed that the easily available country revolvers are finding their way into the hands of unscrupulous land sharks, again from Bombay and the north. These new entrants into the city's real estate business, according to a local real estate dealer, are willing to go to any lengths to acquire property in Bangalore. Says he: "We know of two transactions in the last two months where old buildings were forcibly bought by real estate players from the north. The reluctant sellers were 'informed' that they would be better off selling the property, lest a family member receive a bullet injury."

 For rival groups of land dealers, the easy availability of country revolvers through north Indian students is a natural progression from the days when country bombs were used to settle land disputes. Last year, rival groups of land dealers settled scores by bumping off two persons in the city with country-made bombs.

The police, however, say there is no evidence that country weapons being brought in from north Indian states are finding a market in Bangalore's growing real estate business. But then, neither did the police, as Srinivasulu admits, know of north Indian students bringing in weapons till the spate of crimes forced the department to grapple with the situation.

To say that the incidents are not isolated but that the situation is not alarming, as both Srinivasulu and Ramamurthy insist, is the Bangalore police's method of taking shelter in official phraseology. But senior police officials admit in private that the recent incidents have resulted in charting out a clear objective for the department: not to let Bangalore become another Bombay. And that is no easy task.