Farrukhabad (Uttar Pradesh): At first sight, there’s nothing to set apart this small yet bustling town on the Ganga, located near Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh. The chaotic medley of traffic—cycles, scooters, auto-rickshaws, cars, buses and tractors—bouncing along potholed roads could be a scene from any town in India.
Armed and dangerous: Gun-makers in Farrukhabad. It takes just 4 hours to put a katta together and no special skills are required.
Yet, Farrukhabad, about a 9-hour drive from New Delhi and the headquarters of an Uttar Pradesh district, has the distinction, albeit dubious, of being a key north Indian hub of a flourishing illegal firearms industry. Until some years ago, the district centred on the town had the country’s highest murder rate.
It is famous for so-called country-made guns, crude but deadly and requiring no licence to possess, used to carry out at least five high-profile crimes, including the murder of television journalist Soumya Vishwanathan, in New Delhi in 2008.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau, between 2003 and 2007, an average of 30 people were killed by firearms every year in the national capital and in 75% of the cases country-made weapons, known in local slang as kattas, were used.
The lure of quick money and easy access to cheap weapons has brought criminals from the badlands of Uttar Pradesh to the country’s capital.
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About three months ago, Vishwanathan, returning from work late in the night, was shot dead with a country-made pistol. The weapon is yet to be recovered and the investigations have reached a deadend. Earlier in 2008, south Delhi businessman Arun Gupta and 16-year-old schoolgirl Neha Gupta were killed with country-made guns.
“It’s not just illegal firearms that are making their way into the national capital, even criminals from neighbouring states are pouring into Delhi. Criminals will not operate from their native place, criminals living in other states are operating in Delhi,” says assistant police commissioner Rajan Bhagat of Delhi Police.
A reporting team from Mint carrying a video camera could interview key people for this story in Farrukhabad on condition that they wouldn’t be identified or their actual neighbourhood disclosed.
Narrow bylanes lead to a small, dingy room next to a stable. The gun-makers walk in confidently, four of them. Before facing the video camera, the men deftly cover their faces with cloth.
“We indulge in looting and killing. We demand money and if refused, we shoot the person, that’s what we do,” one of them says casually. He is 26 years old, exudes confidence, and knows his illegal weapons well.
Cost-effective weapon