Hyderabad: Not one, but two armoury rooms were broken into at the Madras Regiment campus in Bolarum, with security guards stationed a mere 20 metres away.Sources told TOI that firearms and ammunition were stored in different facilities 40 metres apart. The burglars broke the locks of both and stole 12 firearms along with specific ammunition for the weapons none of which have been recovered a week on. “Record maintenance has been poor and army officials are unable to tell us the number of times they have conducted a security audit,” said an investigator.According to police officers, the firearms storage facility called KOTE (keeper of technical equipment) and the ammunition plus explosives room, called battalion magazine, are about 40 metres apart. The guard room is centrally located from both facilities. “The perimeter has a barbed wire fence but one can sneak through the gaps between the wires,” said an officer privy to the investigation.The burglars broke the locks on both the doors on Aug 30 night, picked up four AK-203 rifles, an INSAS rifle and seven pistols from KOTE and over 1,800 rounds of ammunition from the adjacent magazine. “There were a lot more weapons, including light machine guns (LMGs), in the KOTE but the offenders stole only 12 specific firearms. There was no breach of the barbed wire fence and the guards claimed they did not notice the burglary till Aug 31 morning. That means more than one person was directly involved in the offence to carry out the weapons weighing over 40 kg,” said a senior police officer. “That, or the crime was committed over time.”The initial suspicion was naturally against Army personnel who were on guard duty in two-hour shifts that night, their supervisors and old-timers who know the entire place well. “Guards claimed innocence saying that due to heavy rain they did not hear the noise and the doors of both the facilities were not in their line of sight. This means either the burglars knew everything about the armoury or guards have been lying. Interrogation is yet to yield results,” said a Malkajgiri police officer.Immediately after the police complaint was lodged on Monday, a thorough search was carried out at the battalion and an empty INSAS rifle magazine was found in the stormwater drain next to the barracks. Malkajgiri police officials have seized it as part of the investigation and verification of the magazine’s number by the army officials revealed that it was not part of the stolen ammunition. “We suspect that someone who had the empty magazine dumped it in the drain to avoid trouble during the search,” said a police officer.While police officials are yet to identify the accused and recover the stolen arms and ammunition after six days of investigation, NIA sleuths have also started collecting details of the case.
