Jaipur/Udaipur: Rajasthan Police’s Anti-Gangster Task Force (AGTF), in collaboration with Pratapgarh Police, arrested two arms smugglers and recovered 14 illegal weapons and 1,860 cartridges. While Rakesh Kumar was arrested from Chhoti Sadri in Pratapgarh, Salman Khan—a notorious criminal from Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh—was brought on a production warrant from Banswara, where he was lodged in connection with a smuggling case.Officials said the arrests exposed an active arms supply network operating across the state.ADG (Crime) Dinesh MN said an AGTF team gathered intelligence from Banswara, Pratapgarh, and Chittorgarh, leading to Rakesh Kumar’s arrest on June 28 with a pistol in his possession.During interrogation, Rakesh revealed the involvement of Salman Khan. Salman, who was already in Banswara jail, was taken into custody under a production warrant. He disclosed that he followed in the footsteps of his father, Sher Khan, a dismissed policeman killed in a police encounter. Salman dropped out of school, used his 90 bighas of ancestral land as cover, and began forcibly grabbing disputed properties under the guise of real estate deals.To escape mounting legal pressure, Salman fled to Dubai using a fake passport. Before leaving, he handed over his weapons stockpile to his associate Mohammad Nawaz from Ratlam in exchange for Rs 30 lakh.Based on his confession, police recovered a large cache of weapons from Chhoti Sadri: 14 illegal firearms—including pistols, revolvers, a pump-action gun, and a rifle—along with 10 magazines and nearly 1,900 live rounds of various calibers.Salman already faces several charges, including assault, attempted murder, extortion, Arms Act violations, and offences under the NDPS Act.AGTF additional SP Siddhant Sharma said an investigation is underway to determine how the criminals planned to supply the weapons and to which gangs.
