Press Trust of India

letters@hindustant

Bhopal : One of the two men who stole loaded INSAS rifles from the Army cantonment in Pachmarhi in Madhya Pradesh early Friday is a serving Army officer, a police officer said on Saturday night, adding that the duo have sneaked into neighbouring Maharashtra.

Earlier, it was believed that the duo posed as Army officers to commit the crime at the Army camp in Hoshangabad district.

In a major security breach, the two men had decamped with the rifles of sentries and ammunition in early hours of December 6, prompting police to issue a high alert. As per preliminary investigation, they spent nearly two hours at the cantonment where they misled the sentries into obeying their ‘orders’, according to another officer.

“According to our inputs, the location of the suspects was in Maharashtra some hours back. We don’t have the latest location now,” a high-ranking police officer privy to investigation said.

He said one of the duo who has been identified is a serving officer of the Army, while the identity of his accomplice is being established. “The Army officer has been absent from duty from an Army unit in Hoshiarpur in Punjab since October 14,” he said, adding that the runaway officer had undergone training at Pachmarhi for ten months.

The police officer, however, refused to explain how the two suspects managed to cross into Maharashtra at a time when a high alert was sounded in Madhya Pradesh.

Eleven years ago, Maharashtra’s capital Mumbai was attacked by fidayen terrorists from Pakistan.

According to sources in police, the duo had got down from the SUV at the cantonment in early Friday and ordered the sentry at the checkpost to summon other jawans for an assembly. They sent another sentry to call a JCO (Junior Commissioned Officer) from the camp.

While the two sentries rushed to obey the orders leaving the posts unguarded, the duo picked up their INSAS assault rifles loaded with magazines having 20 cartridges and fled, they said.