Passengers carrying cartridges caught from Pune International Airport

Guwahati: Creating a sensation at Pune International Airport, two passengers are being caught carrying cartridges in separate incidents on Thursday. Both the passengers, travelling separately are caught after the airline staff found cartridges in their luggage while undergoing the luggage checking procedure.

In the first incident, the airline staff found a 58-year-old passenger hailing from Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district carrying cartridges. The passenger was about to board in a Pune-Bengaluru SpiceJet flight (SG- 519). He was detained by the police on finding 22 bullets of .32 caliber in his baggage. This was an incident of around 4:45 a.m.

The second incident is of a 60-year-old man hailing from Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh who was also being caught by the Airport Authority. The passengers were to board a Pune-Delhi Indigo flight (6E 863). He is caught with two cartridges in his baggage.

Both the passengers are being detailed by the Vimantal Police and are under investigation. Vimantal station’s senior police inspector Dilip Shinde said, “It appears that the person in the first case, identified as one Dilip Mukundrao Patil and hailing from Pachora town in Jalgaon, forgot to keep the bullets out of his hand luggage before boarding his flight. We have verified that Patil has a licence for his pistol.”

The second passenger is identified as Bhagwan Singh and is a locomotive driver. He had come to Pune to visit his son who is an IT engineer working in Pune’s Wagholi IT Park area.

Shinde added, “We are still questioning him as to how the two cartridges came about in his luggage.”

SpiceJet too issued a statement on the matter of the arrest of two passengers with cartridges on Thursday. It was mentioned that none of the passengers had declared the possession of live cartridges in their bags before placing the baggage for screening.

The SpiceJet statement says, "He was questioned by SpiceJet staff and the CISF was immediately informed. The passenger was requested to provide the necessary documents, which according to him he had left at his home. The passenger was handed over to CISF and was then taken to the local police station."

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